Unchosen
by JK Philips
Summary: BOOK FIVE in the DBC series, sequel to The Fine Art of Blackmail. Giles wanted to prevent his daughter from inheriting her mother’s destiny, to give his son the choice he never had. He wanted Buffy to live a lifetime beside him. Fate had other plans.
1. We Don’t Always Get What We Want

In the past, I've always given a brief synopsis of what went on before. At this point in time, I think if you haven't read the previous four books (614 pages in the printed paperback), you might be a little lost, so I won't even attempt to catch you up. You should check out the previous books in the Death Brings Clarity series to bring yourself up to speed.

For everyone else, welcome back to the world that exists inside my head when I should be thinking about work.

ORIGINALLY POSTED: October 31, 2002  
TITLE: Unchosen  
AUTHOR: JK Philips  
RATING: PG  
SUMMARY: Sequel to the Death Brings Clarity saga, now nearly ten years after The Fine Art of Blackmail. Giles wanted to prevent his daughter from inheriting her mother's destiny. He wanted to give his son the choice he never had. He wanted Buffy to live a lifetime beside him. Fate had other plans...  
SPOILERS: Everything up to "The Gift"  
DISCLAIMER: I do not own these characters; they are the property of Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy & Fox. I simply am doing this for fun, and non-profit use.

* * *

Part 1: We Don't Always Get What We Want

Giles stood at the foot of her hospital bed, the hissing of the respirator and the beeping of the heart monitor the only sounds in the room. He didn't touch her. He didn't speak to her. She wouldn't know he was there anyway. So he just stood and watched the machines breathe for her, the precise rise and fall of her chest with each mechanical breath.

The door opened behind him as one of the nurses entered. They were accustomed to his presence and usually worked silently around him. This one paused beside him, studying the woman in the bed with a sympathetic expression, and then she actually spoke to him.

"She has no hope of recovery." The voice was subdued and kind, but yet firm. She wanted to leave him with no illusions.

"I know."

"The machines are the only thing keeping her alive. In every way that matters, she's dead."

"I know."

How could he not know? He had watched her slowly dying a little more each day. Slayer strength would not be enough, and the time would come when even the machines would not be enough.

"Let her go," the nurse encouraged him gently. "She wouldn't have wanted this."

"We don't always get what we want." His voice was bitter, hollow in his own ears, and the nurse hurried to finish her duties. He ignored her, and soon she was gone.

Giles approached the side of the bed and murmured it again for the benefit of the woman lying there, no matter that she couldn't hear him. "No, we don't always get what we want. Forgive me for keeping you like this. I know I should have let you die a long time ago, but…"

He drew a shaking breath and brushed his hand over the slayer's brow. Her battle scars had nearly healed, leaving only thin, pink-rimmed lines across her pale skin. Deeper, angrier cuts were hidden beneath the hospital sheets, wounds still laced closed with strips of thick, black surgeon's stitching. One long scar curved from temple to chin, the most visible reminder of the battle which had taken her life more than a month ago, though she had yet to actually die.

He sighed and withdrew his hand. "I am so sorry."

He turned and walked out of Faith's hospital room.

* * *

"You're still dropping your shoulder. Let's try it again."

"I'm tired."

"Robin, you've another fifteen minutes left of today's training. Can we please make use of it?"

"I suck with a quarterstaff."

"Hence, the training and practice." Wesley Wyndam-Pryce adopted a defensive stance and raised his own staff. "Again."

With a petulant sigh, Robin flipped her protective face mask down and held her own staff at the ready. He made a practiced feint towards her knees, which she always fell for, leaving him an easy opening for a strike to her shoulder. He held back, as he always did, ever mindful of the fact that beneath the protective padding, she was still just a child of thirteen, not yet possessing the slayer strength that would eventually make her more than an even match for a grown man.

Even so, tears sprang into her eyes after he'd landed his blow. Not because he'd hurt her in the slightest, but because he'd slipped past her defenses once again and shaken her confidence. He sighed and shook his head. Dealing with a little girl's tears during weapons training had never been in the watcher's manual.

"Now, there's no need to weep over one missed block. In any battle, you can't expect to avoid every attack. The secret is in how you rebound and launch your own offensive." He touched her shoulder again with his staff, as if pausing their fight at that moment. "You just fell for my feint, I knocked you in the shoulder, now what? Show me."

"I can't do this," she sniffled.

"Yes, you can. Turn my move against me. You know this. Show me."

She moved quickly then, in a temper, lashing out at him. Whatever motivated her in her training, Wesley wasn't going to complain or second guess, even if that motivation happened to stem from anger at him. After all, hadn't he resented his own handlers during his watcher's training?

Their staffs clacked together with the full force of her rage, although Wesley understood on some level that only the smallest part of that rage was for him, the greater part reserved for the burden of a destiny she didn't want. He was the only available target, however, and she made full use of him.

"Good," he murmured again and again as he blocked each of her strikes. He didn't attempt any counterstrikes, just allowed her to tire herself out in her assault. Later they would have a discussion about conservation of energy, but for now, he would wait out her anger.

He missed a crucial block, his staff glancing off hers at an awkward angle and the momentum of hers carrying the wood forward to knock hard against his knuckles. He yelped in pain and dropped his staff to the ground.

"I'm sorry!" she cried, her own weapon clattering to the ground, her previous temper dissipated and replaced with concern. She covered her mouth with her hands, bouncing on her feet as she hovered beside him, waiting for him to assess the damage.

"Well, that's one way to dodge out of the last ten minutes of your training," he joked, trying to settle her agitation. He cradled his sore fingers to his chest as he checked to see if any were broken.

"I'm sorry," she whispered, her eyes again filling with tears. Her hands were trembling against her lips.

"Robin," he said sharply, waiting until she had lifted her eyes before speaking to her. "That is the point of your training: to hurt your opponent before they can hurt you. Don't apologize for it. And never hold back. Never."

She nodded solemnly, and he smiled encouragement. She needed all of that she could get. Wesley felt the pressure of time running out. She would be Called all too soon, and she wasn't ready for it. Lately he had begun to doubt if she would ever be ready for it. She didn't seem to be molded from the same mettle as the other slayers he had studied. She lacked Faith's fearlessness, Kendra's blind faith, or Buffy's confidence. In her heart, Robin was fragile as glass, her courage and resolve ready to shatter beneath the slightest weight. And a slayer must carry the weight of the world on her shoulders without breaking. And a watcher must prepare her for the task.

Wesley turned his back on her to allow her to dry her tears and regain her composure. He was not her father to offer her comfort. He was not his own father, either, to deny it to her. He was her watcher, and that meant he offered her whatever would make her stronger. For now, that meant he gave her silence as he busied himself with wrapping his fingers. Thankfully bruised and not broken, he thought. He would be careful with them, and in a few days they would be fine.

He slowly began stripping off his protective gear with his good hand, dropping them in a pile against the wall. In a few minutes, some of Robin's gear was added to the stack, and he felt her presence behind him. He waited a few more minutes before he turned around and looked at her. Her tears had dried, but her eyes were still full of emotion. Long strands of blonde hair were plastered down the sides of her face and along her neck. Beads of sweat dotted her forehead.

"Are you all right?" he asked her.

She shrugged. "I guess," which, through years of experience, he translated as "Yes." If she hadn't been alright, she would have said, "I dunno." It must dismay Giles no end that his children refused to speak proper English.

Wesley nodded towards the shower room in the back. "Get cleaned up. Your father will be here in fifteen minutes to take you home. I think we can forgo training tomorrow, give us both a chance to rest."

His dismissal didn't move her, but she loitered in the training room instead. He wanted to ask her what was bothering her, as something clearly was, but he knew that pressing the issue would only shut her down. So he busied himself with cleaning up after their training session instead and allowed her the space she needed to sort her emotions.

She followed him into the weapons room as he replaced the quarterstaffs. The closed space of the tiny room created an echo, so that when she finally spoke, her soft words sounded much louder.

"Does it hurt?"

He touched his wrapped fingers briefly, and then shrugged off her concern. "A little ice, and I should be fine."

"No, I meant… Does it hurt becoming the Slayer?"

He met her eyes, so frightened, so desperate for him to say what she wanted to hear. He stopped what he was doing, giving her his complete attention. "I shouldn't think so. Your mother didn't even know she was Called until after the fact." She nodded, and he pursed his lips, troubled by her pensive expression. "You know, Robin, I am your Watcher. That means more than just the physical training. I'm also meant to be an adviser, a counselor. You can talk with me about anything you wish, and it would remain between us. Not even your father would need know."

"Between you, me, and your diary," she muttered.

"Watchers don't record every conversation they have with their slayers or prospective slayers." A finger under her chin tilted her face up, forcing her to meet his eyes. "It's alright if you're frightened, Robin. You're allowed to have misgivings."

He watched the decision play out across her face until she finally broke down and confided in him, "I don't want to be the Slayer!"

"It is terribly unfair," he agreed.

"I'm not scared, not like you think. What if… what if I'm not any good?"

"Robin…" She brushed off his comforting touch and turned away from him.

"My whole life people have been waiting for me to become the Slayer. Father hates the whole idea, I know. But everyone else looks at me like… like… especially since… but what if I'm _not_ better than her? What if I'm nothing special, and I just disappoint everyone?"

"You're not in competition with your mother. All anyone expects of you is your best."

"What if my best isn't good enough?" Again, only the tinny echo of the weapons room made her soft words audible.

He sighed. This wasn't the easiest conversation to have with her back. "You have the rest of us to help you. Plus, you have a few years of practice yet before your father will let you patrol as the slayer. And-"

"Yeah, so everyone else can get killed doing my job."

He gently tugged on her forearm and forced her to turn around and face him. He had promised himself many years ago that he would not lie to her, not even the innocent white lies told to comfort children. "You are important to this world, Robin, and yes, people may die to protect you. _I_ would die to protect you. But you cannot take the blame for those deaths." Her eyes flickered to the side, a flash of pain washing across her face. He knew she was already cataloging the list of those who had died to protect her thus far. He placed his hand against her cheek and turned her face towards him. "When the time comes for you to fight the good fight, you will do fine. Remember, you will have something your mother didn't have, something no slayer has ever had."

"What?"

"Magic."

Her forehead creased as she puzzled that out. "Magic?"

And suddenly Wesley realized that Giles had never told his daughter about the power he and Willow had warded away.

* * *

Alex focused intently on the papers in front of him. A cancelled check he'd stolen from his father's filing cabinet, a couple sheets of tracing paper ripped from his art book, and one less than stellar report card. He worked quickly, with the practiced ease of experience. His skills at forgery had improved by leaps and bounds over the last few months, and he'd finished nearly the entire semester with his father none the wiser.

His bedroom door slammed shut, and his startled jerk nearly ruined his masterpiece with one ill-placed scribble.

"You're not finished yet?"

"Jeeze, Robin, could you try sneaking up on me again? I don't think you've mastered the art yet."

"Father will be up in a minute. You have to hurry. You should have done it right away after school."

"I just got home. Got detention again. That's another note I have to fake." He quickly tidied his work in progress and stashed it in a desk drawer.

"He remembered about the report cards today. He'll want to see yours straight off."

Alex swiveled in his chair and offered out the report card he had prepared for his father. "Well?"

She glanced over it thoughtfully. "You copied it on cardstock. It looks pretty much the same as mine. The coffee on the edges… nice touch. It wouldn't be from Ms. Kitch if it didn't have something spilled on it. But he'll never believe it."

"Why not?" He took back the paper and studied it. He'd skipped sixth period to run across the street and make copies. You couldn't even see the lines where he'd cut and pasted the new grades.

"All A's and two B's?"

"You think I should make one of them a C?"

"Yeah. And throw in some minuses and pluses with the A's and B's."

They heard their father knock on the door, and Alex begged his sister in a cold panic, "Stall!"

She was a master at stalling tactics and an expert at alibi fabrication. Robin always covered for him, ever since they were little. He would gladly return the favor if she ever broke any rules, but even if she someday did, he doubted that he could as easily sway their father. Giles hardly ever said no to Robin, and Alex had no such luck.

She headed him off before he came in, the two of them standing in the hallway. Alex could hear their voices drifting in to him, the door still partially open. Robin was trying to convince their father that she was starving after her training and needed a snack right _now_. Their father insisted she could wait a whole hour for dinner. And depending on the report cards they showed him, they might go out somewhere nice to celebrate.

No time to make a B into a C, Alex would have to make do with a couple pluses and minuses to even out his grades. He heard the door creak open behind him and grabbed for a textbook to make himself look otherwise occupied.

"Alex?"

He swiveled in his chair to face the door. His father seemed to be leaning on his cane a bit more today. The other watchers had probably kept him on his feet all day. "Yeah, Dad?"

"How was school today?"

Alex shrugged. "Okay, I guess."

Giles arched one brow. "You guess? Does that mean school was okay, and you don't remember it, or that school was okay, and you weren't there?"

"I was there!" Alex protested.

Giles held out his hand. "Then let's see your report card. You, too, Robin."

His sister left to fetch hers, and Alex meekly handed his over.

_Please don't touch the wet ink,_ he mentally prayed as he watched his father read through his grades. Maybe he should have left it the way it was rather than mess with adding the pluses and minuses.

A ghost of a smile lifted the corners of his father's mouth. "A B+ in History? Well done, son. You've really improved this term."

Standing behind him, Robin mouthed, "B+?"

Alex mouthed back, "Shut up!"

And then the smile faded from Giles' mouth, replaced with a scowl. "Unsatisfactory attendance? Eighteen absences this term? And just where have you been when you weren't in school?"

Alex squirmed in his seat. He'd been so wrapped up in altering his grades, he'd forgotten totally about the attendance information on the card.

His sister jumped in to save him. "But look, Father, Alex got an A in Science this time. And one in Math, too." Her finger darted out to point at the grades, knocking against the card in her enthusiasm. She realized it at the same moment as Alex: she'd smudged the minus after his English grade.

But Giles wasn't looking at the card when it happened, and if Alex could get it signed quickly enough, maybe he wouldn't notice.

He quickly brought his father a pen. "I'm sorry about missing school. But some of those days were for watcher school stuff you wanted me to go to."

"Some of those days, not eighteen of them," Giles answered darkly. He limped over to his son's desk and lowered himself into the chair. Alex crossed his fingers and continued to silently pray that the smudged minus wouldn't be noticed.

Thankfully, his father's hand rested over the incriminating evidence as he put pen to paper and signed off on the phony report card. Tomorrow Alex would return his real report card with his father's forged signature, and he would hopefully avoid whatever punishment he probably deserved.

"Robin," Giles called, holding his hand out for her report card as the other hand absently rubbed at his lame leg. Alex retrieved his own as quickly as wouldn't be suspicious and stuffed it into his backpack. He breathed a sigh of relief. Close call. A horrible fate narrowly avoided.

Robin's grades were the same as the last time: mostly B's and a few A's. Giles smiled, praised her, and signed off.

"Now, where would you like to go out tonight?"

"Pizza," they both chorused together. They could always agree on that.

Giles groaned and shook his head. "Very well. You both did extremely well this term, so the night is yours. Dinner and whatever else your hearts' desire." He pulled himself stiffly to his feet, leaning heavily on his cane. Alex watched silently, knowing his father must have done a lot of walking today for his leg to bother him so much. Some days the limp was barely noticeable and the cane was nothing more than an accessory.

"Did you go to LA today?"

"I had some errands to run," Giles answered, looping his free arm around his son's shoulders.

"You should let some of the other watchers do it sometimes," Alex scolded. "You shouldn't do so much walking in one day."

"And you shouldn't be skipping school. We'll have a talk about that tomorrow, shall we?"

Alex sighed. "Yes, Father."

* * *

"Really, I don't know what to do with him." Giles tried to relax as Buffy combed through his hair, as her fingertips rubbed at his temple and tried to massage away his growing headache. At least she refrained from commenting on how gray it had gotten. They rested beneath the shade of a large oak tree, she with her back pressed against its gnarled trunk and he reclining with his head in her lap. The setting should have been idyllic, but he couldn't let go of his lingering frustration. "He skipped all those days, and I've no idea where he was or what he was doing."

"Did you try asking him?"

"I did. He said he was researching in the Council Libraries."

Her fingers stopped fussing over him, and he shifted slightly to look up at her, his head still comfortably in her lap. She was frowning down on him. "You think he was lying to you?"

"I know he was. The Library has an electronic lock that records everyone's comings and goings." Giles sighed and pulled himself to a sitting position. The grass beneath his hands was soft and new, the sky above bright and clear. He should be enjoying this time with her, and yet all he could think about was what awaited him at home: a daughter he couldn't prevent from being Called, a son he could no longer seem to connect with, and an ever expanding network of watchers he was responsible for. He took off his glasses and rubbed at his eyes, so very weary. "What worries me more than the lying is that it came so easily to him. Our son happens to excel at lying. It appears to be all he excels at lately."

She batted at his shoulder in mock annoyance. "Play fair, now! You said he got better grades this time."

"So it would seem. Still, there's no reason he shouldn't be getting straight A's. He's so smart, Buffy, but he doesn't apply himself."

"What're you going to do?"

Their eyes met, a long silence between them. He could discuss the situation with her as much as he liked, but in the end, it always came down to his decision. "Ground him for the truancies." He shared a mischievous half grin with her. "Since he enjoys researching at the Library so much, it would seem extra lessons at the Council are in order."

She didn't smile back, but instead looked down, her lashes veiling her eyes. "Maybe you should go easy on him this time. Maybe you shouldn't push him so hard."

"I push him, because I know the kind of world he will have to live in."

She jumped to her feet and started walking away from him, out of the shade, into the clearing, into the sun. Giles struggled to his own feet and rushed to catch up. His heart was in his throat, panic making his movements clumsy. He stumbled to one knee, his hand reaching out for her. "Buffy, wait!" He wasn't ready for her to go yet.

She spun around, her hair whipping against her cheeks, tears glistening in her eyes. "You promised, Giles! You promised me that he'd have a choice."

"He will." He reached her side in the next moment, his arms wrapping around her waist and pulling her towards him. He bent his head to rest his forehead against hers. "He'll have the choice when he's old enough to make it."

She nodded and closed her eyes, one lone tear sneaking past her lashes to trail down her cheek. He kissed it away. She tipped her chin up so he could kiss her properly, and he did. A deep, searching kiss that only left him wanting more.

"I've missed you." He touched his hand to the side of her face. "I keep having the other dreams lately."

"Yeah, the other dreams suck. You should stop having those."

He laughed at her blunt advice. "Believe me, I'd like to. I think they must come from watching Faith's condition slowly deteriorate. I just keep thinking-"

"Stop." She shushed him with a finger to his mouth. "Stop thinking." She tugged on his hand and led him down the slope of the meadow, the grass growing taller as they descended. "Time for action."

"Where are we going?" He held fast to her hand, their pace steadily increasing as they went down the hill. The grass was tall enough now to brush against his knees, and the sky was clouding over, threatening rain.

"Faith will be here soon. You can't stop that. You can't hold her there. But there's time still to help Robin."

He tightened his grip on her hand, feeling her fingers begin to slip from his as she started skipping faster down the incline. "Slow down, Buffy, I can't keep up."

"You're not supposed to keep up. I'm supposed to go ahead of you. Slayers first."

He did lose hold of her hand then, and she ran down the hill without looking back. He sprinted after her, feeling only the slightest echo of pain through his left leg. The grass was waist high now, slowing him down, and he felt as if he were swimming against the current to catch up to her.

He tripped on a stray root or something, falling down beneath the grass. He swore, pulled himself up, and dusted himself off. But as soon as his head cleared the top of the grass, he realized he could no longer see Buffy just in front of him.

"Buffy?" He turned in place, his eyes scanning the surrounding meadow, but all he saw was a wide sea of tall, green grass, gently blowing in the breeze as storm clouds rolled in overhead. She was gone.

"Please don't do this," he begged softly, still spinning in place and searching for her. "Don't leave me again."

He grunted as something knocked into him from behind and tackled him to the ground. He could hear her laughing as she crawled up his body, and he rolled over beneath her, running his hands along the hips that straddled him.

"Tag, you're it," she teased, leaning over to kiss him on the nose.

He grabbed her wrists to hold her in place. She didn't fight him, but neither did she seem pleased that he'd ended their game. In fact, she gave him a fairly impressive pout.

"You said it's not too late for Robin," he reminded her. "How do we stop her from being Chosen?"

The grass sheltered them, arching over them to cloak the sky and hold back the outside world. The light that filtered through between the blades was uneven, stripes and dots of light and dark flickering across her face.

"You don't want to stop that, Giles. You think you do, but trust me on this: you really, really don't. But you can still stop her from making a terrible mistake."

"How?"

"Just be her father. She has a Watcher. Be her father."

The grass began to rustle around them, long blades dipping down and rising back up, fat drops of rain landing on the ground around them, the grass not shelter enough against the sudden shower.

Buffy lifted her face up to the sky and spread her hands out to catch the rain. "You notice how we never manage to make it out of this meadow?" She leaned down over him again, nose to nose. "You know what's waiting for you, don't you?"

"I know." He did know. Or rather he suspected. The ominous rain clouds, the grass growing taller and taller, as tall and thick as he remembered. Sinking, falling, pulled down, down, deeper and deeper, down into the earth itself. It was either the one or the other waiting for him, and neither was good.

Buffy, of all people, should understand his reluctance, but she only wagged her finger at him and chided, "Then get your butt in gear and get it over with, Watcher-mine."

He shook his head emphatically. "I can't. I can't go back there."

She touched his cheek softly, brushed a few raindrops from his brow. Her expression was tender, understanding, but resolved. "Sometimes you have to look back before you can look forward." She rose and offered him a hand up. They stood facing each other, the rain still falling. "Until you do, you'll just be stuck here. And there's nothing here for you."

She stretched up on her toes and kissed him. He closed his eyes and leaned into her touch. She whispered it against his cheek, "Not even me."

He opened his eyes, and she was gone. He stood alone in a field of grass that shivered beneath the spring rainfall.

"Buffy?" He sank down to his knees, his head bowed. "Come back," he murmured.

A crack of thunder boomed around him, and he startled awake, the blankets twisted at his feet and his alarm clock beeping beside him. He quickly switched the alarm off, knocking it from the nightstand in his haste. For a split second he looked for her, his arm reaching out towards her side of the bed, before he remembered that he slept alone. He had slept alone for quite some time now.

* * *

Willow parked in front of the school, a few minutes early yet, and busied herself with the newest issue of Archeology Today. She skimmed through several articles, looking for names she didn't recognize. Up and comers. She wanted the brightest, the most talented, the most driven. The lines of watchers were all but gone, and they needed fresh blood.

Willow served as the Council's chief head hunter, slowly filling its ranks with those blessed with both an aptitude for academics and a potential for magic. She had traveled the world collecting them, every country she had ever wanted to visit and many that she hadn't. Some had arrived practically at her doorstep, drawn to UC Sunnydale's prestigious Classics Department like demons were drawn to the Hellmouth. She taught Ancient Mythology and first year Greek there, would have likely been heading up the whole department by now if her attention weren't divided by the introductory magic classes she also taught at the Council and her constant scouting for future watchers. As it was, her professorship gave her access to incoming freshman and the chance to observe and evaluate them over the course of a semester. Literally half her finds over the past seven years had been culled from her own classes.

The school bell rang, and she set aside her reading, scanning the throng of exiting students for familiar faces.

She spotted them walking out together, a few girls chatting with Robin, a few boys laughing with Alex. Their friends never mingled, still split into the strict boy/girl groups of that age, but that didn't curtail Alex and Robin from their seemingly inseparable tendencies. Willow always wondered at that. They fought, sure, on occasion, but for the most part they constantly sought out each other's company, an anomaly in her limited experience of siblings. In high school, Buffy used to complain loudly if Dawn tagged along. Actually, she did that in college, too. And Xander's boys often fought to the point that they were all sent to separate rooms. For Alex and Robin, forced separation could probably be considered punishment. Maybe it was a twin thing.

Willow honked the horn several times in succession, trying to make a clever tune out of it. They spotted her immediately. None of the other parents were quite so obnoxious. Last time she'd picked them up, she'd honked them a message in Morse code.

They waved goodbye to their friends and dashed over to the car, both hopping into the back seat. Xander's boys always fought over who would get to ride shotgun, but Alex and Robin never did. They always sat together.

"So did ya have fun at school today? Learn anything cool?"

"I learned that Cassie Ellman is a big baby," Alex announced. "She started crying and told Ms. Kitch that I called her an 'ex hara producte.'"

"And did you?" Willow countered patiently as she maneuvered out of the school parking lot.

"Yeah, but she didn't know what it meant. She couldn't even say it right. I told her it meant she was pretty, but she tattled on me anyway."

Willow adjusted the rear view mirror so she could see Alex in the backseat. "I'm guessing something in your tone of voice clued her into the fact that you called her a pig. Although extra credit for creative insults. Right declension and everything."

"Are you going to tell Dad I got in trouble?"

Willow sighed, her forehead scrunched up, and a sad little frown on her lips. It really wasn't her place, and yet she desperately wanted to smooth things over for Alex. He'd had it rough the past couple years, and Giles was still too wrapped up in his own stuff to really notice. This was just one more thing they didn't need between them. Punishment would accomplish nothing here except to push Alex farther away. What the boy was fishing for was attention. And yet, here she was again, picking up the kids from school because Giles was tied up in Council meetings, a common enough occurrence apparently, since neither of them asked after him.

"Are you going to do it again?" She aimed a stern glare in his direction via the rear view mirror.

Alex shook his head back and forth in exaggerated and enthusiastic movements. "Will you sign my note?"

"You got a note for that?"

"Yeah, Ms. Kitch likes to send notes home for everything."

"Alright, but this is a one time deal, Mister. Next time, I tell your dad."

Robin leaned over and whispered something in her brother's ear. The pair held a quiet consultation for several minutes before Robin finally asked, "Where are we going?"

"Well, I'm told you get to skip training today, so I'm guessing I should drop you both off to hang with Anya and kids 'til your dad finishes up at headquarters."

More whispering between the two of them, their heads bent close together. They came to some sort of decision, and Robin leaned forward to ask politely, "May we please go with you, Aunt Willow?"

"I don't know; I have office hours now. Students might drop in for help. Of course exams are a ways off, so it'll probably be just me and my books for a couple hours… which I was actually kinda looking forward to."

"We'll be good if anyone comes in," Robin promised.

"Real quiet," Alex seconded.

"You just don't want to spend time with the boys."

"They're mean," Robin grumbled.

"They have their mother's sense of tact," Willow corrected. "And you can come with me for now, but that only buys you a couple hours reprieve. We all agreed to have dinner at their house tonight."

The twins groaned, and Willow drove past the turn off for Xander and Anya's house and continued on to the UC Sunnydale campus.

They behaved, as promised, although she only had one student stop in.

Alex amused himself by sitting beside the office window and sketching the courtyard below in his notebook. He had a talent for artwork, and some of his more recent portrait attempts were actually recognizable.

Robin shadowed Willow around as she sorted and shelved her newest shipment of books. The girl had grown more subdued and reflective since Faith's final battle, and Willow suspected that the waiting was weighing her down. She was mighty tempted to have a confrontation with Giles about it. He couldn't keep Faith on life support forever, at least not long enough to save Robin, and it would be better to let the Slayer die now than to string his daughter along any longer. The poor child's nerves frayed more every day, ripped apart by anticipation and dread. This keeping the world on pause thing was doing no one any favors.

"Aunt Willow?" Robin asked softly.

"Yeah?"

"In training yesterday… Wesley said I have magic. He said that you and Father locked it away."

Willow's breath caught. This was an unexpected line of questioning and a conversation the girl should be having with Giles. "You were too young to control it. I think… I think you should talk to your father about this, Robin."

"But I do have magic?"

"Yes."

"Like yours?"

Willow smiled softly and tucked a lock of hair behind Robin's ear. She looked so much like Buffy, in the way the tears welled up in her eyes before falling and in the way her chin worked to maintain control over her emotions. Willow ached for her friend sometimes when she looked at her daughter. "No, honey. Your magic's like yours. Everybody's is different."

"But I can learn to do spells and stuff?"

"Someday."

"When?"

Willow frowned and fidgeted with peeling the shipping label off the side of the box they were unpacking. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see that Alex had set aside his sketching and was avidly listening to their conversation. "When you're older. When you're ready."

"I'm ready now," Robin protested.

"That's for your father to say."

"Why? If I'm old enough to be the Slayer, I should be old enough to have magic."

"That argument's been tried before: if you're old enough to vote and get drafted, you should be old enough to drink. Didn't really work then, either." Robin was staring at her blankly, and Willow shook her head. "Nevermind. The point is this: it's not up to me to decide."

"But you helped Father cast the spell, so you can break it."

"Anyone can break it, Robin, but that's beside the point. Your father gets to say when you're ready for magic… and when you're ready to date, and what time your curfew is, and if you can have friends over on a Friday night. Right now he gets to be the boss of you, not me." Her eyes narrowed suspiciously. "Why do you want the magic so badly?"

Robin crossed her arms, her own eyes narrowing with a bit of Buffy's spitfire defiance. "Because it's mine."

Willow laughed and held her hands up in surrender. "Okay, okay. Give your father some of that attitude, and maybe he'll cave." She stood and picked up the half-empty box, the remaining books not belonging to her. "You guys stay put while I run the rest of these over to Professor Clark. I'll just be gone a minute."

She ducked out of her office, hoping the topic would be forgotten by the time she returned. Her only consolation in this particular situation was that Wesley would be on the receiving end of Giles' ire and not her. She hadn't been the one to spill the beans.

* * *

Robin watched at the doorway until Willow had turned the corner, and then dashed over to the office desk. She opened and closed various drawers, pawing through the contents, searching for something helpful.

Alex hopped down from his window seat and joined her. "What are you looking for?"

"Names, numbers, something, anything."

"Aunt Willow keeps everything on her computer."

Robin sighed and tried the bottom drawer. "Yeah, but that's password protected." She stopped rifling through the drawers as her eyes landed on a promising item. "Ah-ha! PDA. I bet she has her address book in it."

She removed the small electronic device, and just as she had hoped, it wasn't password protected. She skimmed through the address entries, waiting for something to jump out at her.

Alex tugged on her sleeve. "What're you looking for?"

"She said anyone could break the spell. She won't. Father won't. I'm gonna find someone who will."

"Why?"

Robin smiled then, a wide, triumphant smile, because she had just found what she needed. "'Cause I'm gonna do a spell. A spell to not be the Slayer. And I bet _he_ helps me." She turned the screen to show her brother.

"Ethan Rayne? Dad's old friend?"

"Willow's too."

Alex shook his head. "Boy, are you gonna get in trouble for this."

Next:  
Part 2: One Birth, One Death, and Two Twists of Fate


	2. One Birth, One Death, Two Twists of Fate

ORIGINALLY POSTED: February 15, 2003  
TITLE: Unchosen  
AUTHOR: JK Philips  
RATING: PG  
SUMMARY: Sequel to the Death Brings Clarity saga, now nearly ten years after The Fine Art of Blackmail. Giles wanted to prevent his daughter from inheriting her mother's destiny. He wanted to give his son the choice he never had. He wanted Buffy to live a lifetime beside him. Fate had other plans...  
SPOILERS: Everything up to "The Gift"  
DISCLAIMER: I do not own these characters; they are the property of Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy & Fox. I simply am doing this for fun, and non-profit use.

* * *

Part 2: One Birth, One Death, and Two Twists of Fate

Giles steeled himself for the chaos on the other side of the door before knocking. The Harris household was rarely a place of peace and tranquility.

"Do we hafta sit with the boys?" Alex asked again. Dear Lord, the boy had mastered his mother's pout and whine.

"Yes, you'll sit with the other children, and you'll behave. And you'll not incite them to cause mischief or fight amongst themselves. Don't think for a second that I'm unaware who suggested the treasure hunt through their mother's flowerbed during our last visit."

"I only said _what if_ there was buried treasure. I didn't tell them to dig up tulips looking for it."

"I shouldn't have to sit with the boys," Robin complained. "I'm a girl."

"Yes, a girl who must still sit at the children's table." He reached up and knocked on the door just as Willow came up the steps behind them.

"Hey, kiddos!"

"Aunt Willow!" The twins both launched themselves at her and tackled her in enthusiastic bear hugs. "Can we sit by you?" they asked simultaneously.

"Sorry. No can do. John and April are supposed to come tonight, right?" She lifted her eyebrows in Giles' direction, and he nodded. She continued with the guest list. "Wesley, me, your dad, possibly Lizzy, if she gets out of surgery in time, and oh yeah, Xander and Anya. Nope, the grownup table's all full. You're stuck at the kiddie table tonight."

They both groaned, and Giles shared a bemused grin with Willow before knocking on the door a second time, this time a bit louder and with his cane.

"Just a sec, coming," they heard from somewhere inside.

Willow leaned over and whispered it to him conspiratorially, "So, you got any idea what the special occasion is?"

Giles just shrugged. "Not in the slightest."

From between them, Alex piped up with his own opinion, "I bet they're having another baby."

"Alex, shhh, be nice," his father admonished him.

The door opened then, Xander waving them in with a flourish, two-year-old Daniel slung against one hip, head tipping against his father's shoulder and his eyes already drifting closed.

"Someone's ready for bed," Giles observed, tickling the child beneath his chin and eliciting a sleepy grin.

"Naptime was missed. I think Anya's crankier about it than he is." Xander passed the child over to Aunt Willow's eager hands and led his guests into the dining room.

"Where is everyone?" Willow asked, swaying with Daniel and softly patting the child's back. She was so good with the children, Giles thought it was a shame she had never decided to have any of her own. Of course, Xander and Anya had graciously taken up the slack in that department. Not that they couldn't afford it, what with Xander's construction business booming and the Magic Box spawning franchises in three different cities.

"Let's see," Xander answered. "The boys are out back. John and April are in the kitchen helping Anya with dinner. Actually, I think John's cooking, and the women are supervising. Wes isn't here yet. Hey, Will, is Lizzy coming?"

"If she can. She's supposed to be off at seven, but she has to finish an emergency procedure first."

"Hmmm… She rather suspiciously misses all of our Scooby get-togethers. I'm beginning to think this new girlfriend of yours is imaginary."

Willow rolled her eyes, but nonetheless took the bait. "She's a doctor, Xander. She's busy a lot. Which is okay, 'cause I'm not exactly drowning in free time either."

Xander surreptitiously inched his way towards the kitchen before replying. "Really, it's cool, Will. Nick has an imaginary friend, too. Maybe they can sit together at the imaginary table."

She glared and waved a threatening fist at him. "If I wasn't holding Danny right now, you'd be in big trouble, Mister."

He laughed and quickly ducked into the kitchen, leaving them to find their own seats for dinner.

They filed into the formal dining room, the table already laid out with the appropriate number of place settings. Giles chose a seat nearest the door, expecting the room to eventually swell to near claustrophobic proportions and wanting to leave himself some breathing room. He stretched his legs out in front of him, grateful for the opportunity to get off his feet. His leg wasn't bothering him as much as it had the day before, and he probably didn't even need the cane. He'd done very little walking, the morning spent in the Council Library, cataloguing the items he had acquired during yesterday's visit to LA, and the afternoon filled by meetings with various watchers and instructors, planning the next semester's curriculum. Even so, his left leg ached. If he were honest with himself, it always ached after a day of even the most limited physical exertion, courtesy of Sulla's past bullet wound, a full day of torture at Darla's hands, and an unfortunate meeting with a mace-wielding vampire.

He rubbed absently at his thigh, only to find his son's fingers replacing his own, the boy gently massaging the stiffness from his muscles. Alex wouldn't meet his eyes, however, and Giles wondered if he had been too harsh that morning when reprimanding him for the truancies and the lies told to excuse them.

"You haven't been to the therapist all month," Alex mumbled, focused intently on his work.

"There hasn't been time," Giles answered, relaxing slightly beneath his son's nimble ministrations. He reached his hand out to touch Alex's cheek, but the boy flinched back, his fingers dropping away. Giles sighed, the moment between them lost when the rest of the Harris brood flooded into the dining room, followed by their parents, and behind them John and April bearing dinner.

There was Erik, eight years old, growing so quickly that he'd nearly reached Alex's height, even though there were five years between them. Next came Nicholas, six years old, smart as a whip, with a penchant for disassembling things. Willow had him pegged for a watcher one day, a fact that didn't seem to disturb Xander, but rather puffed him up with pride. Anders was next, four years old, fearless and determined to play the same games his older brothers did. That usually meant the child ended up as the test subject for whatever new sport they invented. He'd already had stitches twice this year. And then two-year-old Daniel, the baby of the family, had fallen fast asleep in his Aunt Willow's arms.

The nap didn't last long, ended as soon as his brothers entered the dining room, pushing and shoving and arguing with each other at a high decibel level. Giles flinched as Anya shouted above the noise, ordering the three boys upstairs to wash their hands. Daniel started crying, and she collected him, placing him in a highchair at the end of the table and pacifying him with some goldfish crackers from her pocket. John and April laid the food on the table and took their places beside Giles.

John winked at his friend and informed him in a soft voice, "You missed out. The kids were playing Council out back."

Giles raised one eyebrow, amused. "Really?"

"Apparently it involved a lot of pretend sword fighting and fending off a siege of vampires. Sadly, you did not feature as the coveted role. They fought over who got to play Wesley."

Giles laughed and shook his head. "I don't imagine stacks of paperwork and a schedule full of meetings makes for riveting playtime."

"Yes, well, you didn't come in second, either. Stein had that honor. The loser had to play you."

John laughed hard then, elbowing his friend in the ribs as if to punctuate the joke. He took pity on Giles a moment later and tacked on, "If it makes you feel any better, only girls make up games revolving around second grade teachers. At least you're a third rate superhero."

Giles smiled and rolled his eyes, thankful that he could enjoy such inside jokes with his friend. For so long, his life as a watcher and the existence of demons, slayers, and magic had remained a closely guarded secret from the Tims. But ever since they had accidentally stumbled upon this information, and he and Buffy had failed to adequately explain it away, John and April had joined the inner circle of Scoobies. There were times Giles missed their ignorance, missed having a relationship with "normal" people. Sometimes, though, it was nice not to lead a double life. And since April's retirement from the force, she had proved invaluable as a profiler and security consultant for the Council.

Xander's boys, now washed up and clean, give or take a few grass stains on assorted knees and elbows, rejoined the group just as Wesley arrived, apologizing for his lateness. He laid a hand against the top of Robin's head as he passed by, and she smiled up at him, following him with her eyes as he took a seat beside Willow. For a moment, Giles understood what Joyce had felt all those years ago after learning of slayers and vampires and what exactly the high school librarian meant to her daughter. Joyce had hated him, and for a fraction of a second, he hated Wesley, too. It didn't matter that Giles owned a deeper understanding of watcher/slayer relationships than Buffy's mother had. If anything, that made it worse, to know that one day Wesley would be closer to Robin than her own father ever could be. Giles took a sip of water and swallowed back his own jealousy.

They ate dinner without incident. Aside from the occasional complaint that someone was kicking them under the table or had called someone else a rude name, the children behaved themselves. Lizzy was a no-show, as usual, which earned Willow further teasing. Dinner was excellent, the food thankfully more reminiscent of John's cooking than Anya's, although Giles had to admit that she had improved over the years.

They reached the end of the meal, and Xander stood, calling for everyone's attention. "We're glad you could all come tonight. With the kind of work we all do, sometimes it takes a full house like this to remind me why we do it. And speaking of a full house, An and I have a special announcement." She reached over and grasped his hand, beaming up at him. He smiled back at her, and she beat him to the punch.

"We're having another baby!"

A stunned silence followed that news, quickly broken by Alex's triumphant, "I told you so!"

Murmured congratulations followed, then the required teasing and John's protestations that he'd never get to retire if he waited for the last Harris child to pass through his classroom.

Wesley lifted his glass, "To family, by blood or by choice."

They all agreed to the sentiment and clinked glasses.

"There's something else," Xander added, sharing a significant look with his wife.

She nodded and stood up beside him, wrapping her arm around his waist. She faced their assembled friends. "I really think that this time it will be a girl. I know I say that every time, but five boys would be a little ridiculous. And if it is a girl, Xander and I would like to name her Buffy."

The silence that followed that second announcement was more somber and reflective, the lighthearted mood quickly darkened by the reminder of who was missing from their celebration. All eyes turned to Giles.

Anya tried to ease the tension with a frank explanation. "Buffy, because she was brave and smart and pretty, and because we all miss her. I've learned that humans use names to connect the past with the future, that doing so keeps the memories of loved ones alive. I think remembering Buffy would be good."

Xander patted her on the arm, his eyes still focused on Giles. "I think everyone gets that, An."

Giles glanced down, blinking rapidly to maintain control over his emotions. His eyes drifted over his plate and glass, focusing on the most trivial details: the pattern of rice left on his plate, the lines of sweat clinging to the side of his water glass. His fingers fidgeted nervously with his fork.

"I think…" He cleared his throat, knowing they were all hanging on his next words, waiting for his reaction. "I think… I think I'm being paged."

He pulled the vibrating pager from his pocket, grateful for the distraction. His relief twisted into apprehension as soon as he'd registered the number on the display: the hospital.

A quick phone call later, and he was headed towards the door, dispensing explanations and instructions as he went. "Faith is crashing. They can't keep her airway clear. Willow, take the children for the night. I'll call when I know more."

She blocked his departure, physically placing herself in his way. "What are you going to do? You can't do anything. You're not a doctor." He saw it in her eyes, what she didn't say: that it was time to give up, that it was a lost cause, that he was being unreasonable in hoping he could do anything to prevent Robin's Calling.

He grabbed Willow by the shoulders and forcibly removed her from the doorway, answering sharply, "I can bloody well keep the staff from playing angel of mercy."

She didn't give up, close on his heels as he snapped up his cane and strode to the door. "They wouldn't, would they? I mean, they can't just let her die. They have an oath and stuff."

"The doctors have been hounding me for weeks to withdraw her life support," he grumbled. "Every bloody doctor and nurse in the whole bloody hospital has talked with me about organ donation and DNR orders at least twice. I wouldn't put it past any of them to do her a 'favor.' All it takes is a moment, Willow. Her heart stops beating for even a moment, and it's finished."

"Maybe it should be finished," Willow ventured. "Maybe you should let her die."

"I'm not having this conversation with you right now." He paused at the front door, not facing her, not trusting himself to face her at that exact moment. "Please see that my children are looked after until I return."

It would have been satisfying to slam the door on the way out, but since he had already lectured his son on that very topic earlier in the day, it seemed unwise. Giles tapped his cane against the pavement as he walked to his car, praying to every known deity that his daughter would not become the Slayer tonight.

* * *

Robin felt the emotional turmoil her father left in his wake. It was like a vacuum had sucked all the air from the room until no one could move, no one could breathe. She thought she might keel over and faint right there on the spot, and wouldn't that be embarrassing?

Everyone was staring at her, her brother included. He touched her softly and said her name, but she shrugged him off. He didn't understand. He couldn't. He hadn't had this destiny hanging over his head for the past ten years. Nobody understood. She would make a rotten slayer, and people would die, and it would be all her fault. People had already died. And that was her fault, too.

"I have cake," Anya offered. "With three color ice cream. Would you like some cake, Robin?"

"I want to go home," she whispered.

"Okay," Willow answered. "Just let me get my—"

"No!" Robin's eyes sought out her watcher, pleading with him. "I don't want to go to Aunt Willow's. I want to go to _my_ home. I want Wesley to take me."

Wesley nodded, waved off any further argument from the others, and escorted the twins back to their house. He kept glancing in the rear view mirror on the drive home, watching her expectantly, like he might be able to see the change when it happened. Robin closed her eyes and rested her head against her brother's shoulder. Thankfully, no one tried to make her talk.

Wesley sent Alex upstairs almost as soon as they'd gotten in the front door, for reasons that were pretty clear to everyone involved. Watcher and potential slayer stood in the foyer for several long, awkward moments, avoiding eye contact with each other. She knew he was waiting for her to confide in him, was making himself available to listen and to help in anyway he could. At the moment, the only person who could help her was one Ethan Rayne, and her time for miracles was quickly running short.

"I don't wanna talk about it," she insisted finally.

"It might help."

She shook her head. "I just wanna be left alone."

He glanced off to the side, as if peering back into the past. She could tell he was gearing up to make some grand confession to her. He did that sometimes, as if by baring his soul, he made it easier for her to do the same. "I have some idea of what it's like, Robin, when everyone's expectations of you are so high that you can't possibly measure up. I was a complete failure as a watcher my first time around. Eighteen generations of watchers on my mother's side, and my father's side traced back practically to the beginning." He gave a short, bitter, self-deprecating laugh that made Robin shiver. "I'd study to exhaustion every night, and still it wasn't enough for my father."

"My father would never—"

"No, of course not." He met her eyes quickly, a comforting hand darting out to squeeze her shoulder. "Your father's feelings for you will never change. But sometimes it hurts worse when we disappoint ourselves."

She sucked in a deep breath, like he'd punched her in the gut. She could feel the tears stinging behind her eyes. _Don't cry. Don't cry. You won't stop if you start now._

He waited for a moment, measuring out her reaction before continuing. "I can offer you this: destinies are a bit like hand-me-downs. They never fit at first, and they never feel like yours, but in time you do grow into them and make them yours. You just have to allow yourself that period of adjustment."

"I said I don't wanna talk about it," she reminded him fiercely, and then bolted up the stairs, slamming her bedroom door behind her.

Wesley would think she was sobbing in her room, which was okay with her if it meant he would leave her alone. He never seemed to know what to do with her when she was crying, like he wanted to gather her up in his arms and hold her 'til her tears were spent, only he had an invisible wall between them that didn't permit it. Old school watcher, Alex had said once. He'd read about it and told her the stories, how watchers had once preached emotional distance from their slayers, how they had once thought of them almost as disposable weapons, relentlessly training them and then sending them out to die.

But that didn't fit her watcher either. That may have been his training, but she'd overheard the arguments he had sometimes with her father, when they both thought she was out of earshot. Her father would throw it in Wesley's face, "She's _my_ daughter, and I'll decide what's best for her." And Wesley would answer back with equal passion, "Yes, but she's _my_ slayer."

It was the way he always said it, the raw, unquestionable claiming in his voice. She was _his_ slayer. No emotional distance there. She was not an instrument, a weapon, she was everything to him, just like her mother had been everything to her father.

Robin wondered briefly if her watcher would be disappointed by what his slayer did next.

* * *

The buzzer rang. Ethan, who couldn't be bothered with crossing over to the intercom, simply waved his hand to magic the outside door open. Willow would scold him for such frivolous use of power surely, but she would forgive him as soon as he tipped her off to a young mage he'd recently encountered in Madrid. The lad had been meticulous, self-righteous, disgustingly honorable, and all-in-all pathetically boring. It was as if he'd already received his education from Ripper's new Watchers' Academy.

A polite knock on the apartment door followed a few moments later, and Ethan jumped to his feet. Willow never needed to knock, and no one else knew that he kept a flat in Sunnydale. Then again, anything with a wicked grudge and a thirst for blood wouldn't be likely to knock either, so he took his chances on opening the door.

"Mr. Rayne, sir?" the young girl standing in the hallway asked nervously.

A charming smile slowly spread across his face. Ah, the joys of Chaos that made life so deliciously unpredictable. Even if he hadn't seen the pictures Ripper had so proudly shown off back when they were still on speaking terms, Ethan would have recognized the girl as a younger version of Buffy in a flat second. But what Giles' little girl was doing on his doorstep, Ethan hadn't a clue. And therein lay the fun.

"I must say, it's a bit early for Girl Scout cookies," he tossed off.

"I'm not a Girl Scout."

"You're a bit young to be selling anything else."

She squirmed beneath his gaze, glancing nervously to the side as if mapping out her possible exits. "My name is Robin Giles, sir."

"So polite. You should've heard the mouth your father had on him when he was your age." Ethan sighed and stepped aside, holding the door open. If he baited her any longer, she'd likely bolt. "Won't you please come in, Miss Giles."

She marched inside, puffed full of false bravado. She informed him knowingly, "You shouldn't give out verbal invitations like that. I might have been a vampire."

"A vampire your size… I think I'd manage to land on top." He slipped into the kitchen to pour them both something to drink. If she wanted to insist on this pretense of social niceties, then he could play host in this particular scenario. Except that a closer inspection of his refrigerator found nothing safe for human consumption. Well, what did he expect after more than a month of traveling? These things didn't refill themselves, at least not in any sort of reliable manner. He'd tried a spell once and come home to a refrigerator overflowing with olives, eggs, strawberry jell-o, and curdled milk.

The liquor cabinet was still adequately stocked, but that was hardly useful. He settled for two glasses of water from the tap and joined his young guest in the main room. She jumped back guiltily as he entered, having been absorbed in inspecting his collection of books and trinkets.

"Thank you," she answered primly as he passed her a glass.

They sat together on the couch, sipping water and looking anywhere but at each other. She seemed fascinated by his statue collection. Some of the figurines were not exactly age appropriate.

"You do magic?" she asked him finally.

"More often than I should, according to your father. Who, by the way, I'm assuming is completely ignorant of your presence here?"

"He's at the hospital with Faith. I snuck out the bedroom window."

"Ah." Ethan clucked his tongue in mock disapproval and set his glass on the end table. "I hope your visit is more than simple curiosity. Else you're wasting my time and liable to incur my wrath. I could turn you into a pretty little songbird to sit in my window, you know? Or maybe a toad. Always a classic."

She swallowed audibly, her eyes wide as saucers, and he bit his lip not to laugh at her. "You wouldn't." Her voice didn't sound as certain as her words would suggest. "You're friends with my father and Aunt Willow."

"With Willow, perhaps. Your father didn't appreciate my last bit of mischief. Soured him on our friendship for good, I'm afraid."

"You like doing magic, don't you?" she ventured. "You're not as serious about it as Father. He never jokes about turning people into things."

"He never jokes about much of anything, I'd wager." Ethan leaned closer and lowered his voice as if they might be overheard. "He didn't always used to be so serious, you know. He used to be a lot more reckless and a helluva lot less boring." He sighed wistfully. "Good times."

He stood up abruptly, shaking off that train of thought. He spread his hands wide and summarized the rest, "But we both got burned by it once… seems like a lifetime ago. Ever since then, I've spent my life devoted to magic, and he's spent his avoiding its use at all costs."

"I have magic," Robin offered eagerly.

"Do you now?"

"Yes, but Father and Willow locked it away."

Ethan shook his head disapprovingly. "He does seem rather fond of doing that." He ignored her curious expression, not wanting to explain to the girl how Willow had once found herself in a similar predicament, nor how he had rescued her from it. A story for another time. He was far more interested in the story Robin was about to tell him. He crossed his arms and looked down on her very seriously. "Let's stop beating around the bush, shall we? You came to see me, Robin, because I do magic and because you're hoping I'll lift your father's spell. And you're hoping I might even teach you how to do some magic yourself."

Not a question, she nodded in answer all the same. "How'd you guess?"

"I'm exceedingly clever." Her goal hadn't been that difficult to puzzle out. Her questions had led him to the obvious conclusion. Only one thing he hadn't figured out yet, however. "Why?"

"Why what?"

"Why do you want your magic?"

She shrugged and ducked her head, her cheeks flushed. Whatever her answer, it was definitely more than simple curiosity.

He sat on the coffee table across from her, his knees barely brushing against hers. He watched and waited patiently for her to lift her eyes. When she did, he informed her honestly, "You know your father's not speaking to me. Whatever you tell me, it'd never get back to him."

She measured him with her eyes, weighing the man before her against the one she'd heard stories about. People tended to trust him on first meeting. It was only later that they figured out their mistake. Apparently, the charming man sitting across from her won out over the specter of Ethan Rayne, Chaos worshipper, and she decided to trust him. Leaning forward slightly, she divulged her plan in a breathy whisper.

"I'm going to do a spell, a spell to not be the Slayer."

"To _not_ be the Slayer?"

She nodded and continued on in the same secretive whisper. "Faith'll die soon, and I don't wanna be Called."

"Do you know of such a spell?" he asked her, eyes narrowed doubtfully.

"No, but there has to be one, doesn't there? There's always a spell for everything."

"Maybe," he answered noncommittally. "But even if there were… You can't do the spell yourself."

"Why not?" She raised her voice then, the conspiratorial whisper forgotten. "Wesley said my magic is really strong. That's why they had to lock it away."

"Maybe. But you also have no clue how to use it. Anything could happen if you tried something of this level. Not that I don't appreciate the unpredictability of the situation... But there are other considerations. Your father would sense the magic on you the minute you got home. More importantly, he'd know I had a hand in it. You ever see your father angry?"

She nodded emphatically. "Yeah. Lots. Especially since Mom died."

"I guarantee you haven't seen him angry like I have. If I cast a spell on you, you can bet I'd be having tea with your mum before the day was out."

"He wouldn't kill you," she said with conviction.

"Maybe not, but he wouldn't hesitate to kick the crap out of me."

Robin giggled, and he flashed her a wry grin in return. He stood and began pacing the small apartment, hands in his pockets, as he worked out a solution to the problem she'd sought his help for, also taking into consideration any possible personal benefits he might reap as a consequence.

"Sneak out again tomorrow," he told her. "Come back here, and I'll take you to someone who can do the spell, someone your father won't recognize, and more importantly: someone he won't connect to me."

"Faith could die before tomorrow!" Robin protested.

"True. Then again she might not, or the spell might not exist, or it might backfire, or you might get caught sneaking out the window." He knelt in front of her and imparted to her the hard won wisdom of his life with a solemnity unlike the trickster they all thought him to be. "Control is an illusion, Robin. Always. It is something your father will never be able to teach you, something he has never been able to accept. Learn this lesson, and you'll avoid the baggage he's lugged around his whole life.

"You can't control what happens. You can't force the universe to give you the ending you want. It's called Chaos, Robin, and it's bigger than you or me. We can roll the dice. We can try for a spell tomorrow, but in the end, it's up to Chaos whether you're Chosen or not. Sometimes that seems unfair, but sometimes it's a blessing. Sometimes it absolves us of guilt or blame. We can't control the ending we get, and so we are not ultimately responsible for it. Do you understand?"

Her unwavering blue eyes focused on him and reflected back wisdom and sadness beyond her years. Eyes of a Slayer. Giles had tried to explain it once, how Buffy's life as a slayer had matured her more quickly, had transformed her from student to equal until the age difference between them was gone. Ethan had always thought his friend was rationalizing himself out of the cradle robbing role, but looking into Robin's thirteen-year-old eyes, Ethan shuddered and finally understood what Giles had been rambling on about.

"But sometimes things _are_ our fault," she assured him calmly. "Even if you don't mean for them to happen, sometimes they're still your fault."

Ethan knew the circumstances of her mother's death. He knew that just as her father had shouldered the guilt for Randall's death, Robin now claimed the blame for her mother's. It amazed him that enough guilt remained to go around, since he knew for a fact that Ripper zealously clung to more than his fair share for Buffy's tragic end.

Ethan sighed. It was a losing battle, he knew. The Giles' genes seemed to carry an extra martyr chromosome, but Robin was such a pathetic sight, he had to at least try. "Just because things end badly, luv, doesn't mean _you're_ responsible for how they end. We don't get to see all the 'what-might-have-beens.' For all you know, the alternatives were worse."

Stubborn as her father and mother put together, which was definitely saying something, Robin remained unmoved by his words.

Ethan bowed his head, conceding defeat for the moment. "Come back tomorrow, and I'll hopefully have something for you."

"Thank you, sir," she answered formally and showed herself to the door.

* * *

"So you managed to buy Faith another day."

"More than that, I hope."

Buffy paused in her digging and brushed the dirt off her hands. She squinted up at him, the sun bright in her eyes. "And where was Robin while you were off intimidating doctors?"

"Wesley took the children home."

"Ah." She nodded her comprehension and resumed digging with her hands, thin rivulets of sweat trickling down the back of her neck and sticking loose strands of hair to her skin. "Because who she needed right then was her watcher, right?"

Giles shifted his weight and his cane to his other side. "Buffy, please. I can't be everywhere at once."

She reached her arms out for the young sapling, and he passed it to her. "You know, my father used to say that exact same thing to me all the time."

He bristled, answering back harshly, "I am not your father! Don't you dare compare me to him."

"Ooo, struck a nerve, did I?" She undid the canvas wrapped around the roots and nestled them gently in the open earth. "Am I allowed to compare you to _your_ father?"

"You never knew my father."

She shrugged, scooping up handfuls of dirt and packing them around the tender roots. "Yeah, well I'm dead now, so I guess I get to be uber-knowledge gal and know everything." She waved him closer. "Here, hold the tree steady while I finish filling in the hole."

It then registered on him what exactly they were doing, and he was momentarily distracted from their previous argument. "Buffy, why are you planting this tree here?"

"You got a better spot picked out?"

He scanned the horizon and the gently sloping hills of the meadow surrounding them, double-checking their position against his memories. "Well, no… It's just… Every other time I visit you, this tree's already grown. I mean, we often sit under it."

Packing down the last of the topsoil neatly, she surveyed her work with satisfaction before climbing back to her feet. She brushed dirt off her knees and hands. "So if I don't plant it now, how we gonna sit under it?"

"But we already _have_ done!" he insisted.

"Right," she agreed. "And everything has to start somewhere."

He pinched the bridge of his nose and drew a deep, calming breath. "Yes, but things usually start in the past. Life is rather linear that way."

"Ten points for my watcher." Buffy beamed up at him and rocked up on her toes to give him a peck on the cheek. "Usually, but not always. Something's coming, Giles. I know, because it already came, and pretty soon we're gonna be at the beginning of it all, and considering how it already turned out… I just think you might need a little guiding hand is all. Guess that makes me your Obi Wan, which is kind of an ironic role reversal, don't ya think?"

"Are you speaking English?"

"Giles, Giles, Giles." She looped an arm through his and started walking him down off their hilltop. Back down through the meadow, back down towards the valley.

He dug his heels in. "Not tonight, Buffy. Please."

"When, Giles?"

"Not tonight."

He felt her head against his shoulder, smelled the clean scent of her hair. A cool breeze played across their faces. Rain was coming. "Okay, Watcher-mine. Not tonight."

* * *

Thumbprint of blood on the forehead. "Mind."

Swath of red across the chest. "Heart."

Dipping a finger into the sticky blood once more, another mark dotted one palm. "Hand."

Blood on the other palm. "Shield."

Tossing a fistful of glitter in the air, a shower of gold dissolved in a burst of magic. "Watcher."

Polite applause followed, and the young man marked in blood smiled proudly. Someone snapped a photograph. A mob of well-wishers circled round to shake his hand.

Willow got up off her knees, still a bit wobbly on her feet after the spell. A strong hand at her elbow held her steady. "Ack!" she complained, ruffling her fingers through her hair. "Next time, you do the spell. I'll be washing glitter out of my hair for the next three days."

"I'm an old man," Giles protested. "The magic takes too much out of me these days."

"Liar."

Wesley joined them at Willow's other side. "Should be enough that we donate the blood. We shouldn't have to do the spell, too."

"Hear, hear," Giles agreed. "Besides, you look so lovely in all the photos."

"Well, Ahmed was my recruit," Willow boasted proudly. "Guess it wouldn't be right for anyone else to initiate him."

The subject of their conversation joined them a moment later, shirt now buttoned up to the neck, the marks of blood from the ceremony still visible on his forehead and palms.

"Welcome to the ranks of Watchers, Ahmed." Giles offered out his hand, and the young man grasped it reverently in a two-handed grip.

"Thank you. Thank you, sir. It's truly an honor. An honor, Mr. Giles."

Poor Giles looked as if he was about to have his arm shaken right off his body. Willow rescued him by distracting Ahmed. She licked her thumb and attempted to scrub off the mark of blood on his forehead. He batted her hand away before she could finish. She considered it part of her job description to keep the watchers unstuffy.

"I have a few potential slayers I'd like you to visit," Giles continued. "See if any of them click. They're just young children of course… one is just a baby… But now that you have our watchers' blood in you, now that you are truly a watcher, you should feel the pull if any of them are meant to be your slayer."

"My slayer," Ahmed echoed with a note of wonder. "Do their families know what they are?"

"The family of the eldest does. Stein spoke with them just before the girl entered school this fall. And the Watchers' Council gained custody of one of the younger ones after her parents died in an automobile accident. We'll have to arrange a chance meeting for the other girls who are still in the dark."

"Piece of cake," Stein assured them, swaggering over to join the group. "We'll send him in to read the water meter or fill in at one of the day care centers or something. Standard fare." He offered out a congratulatory handshake to the new initiate. "Welcome to the club. You report to me now, so whatever slacking Willow let you get away with before won't cut it anymore."

Ahmed sputtered something unintelligible, and Willow leaned forward to inform him quietly, "He's kidding. If he ever comes down too hard on you, you just remember that I have an in with the big boss." She winked and sent the flustered young man off for punch and cake before he could be intimidated further.

"And you!" She whacked Stein in the arm. "You can wait a day at least before you scare him senseless."

He rolled his eyes. "Anyone who scares that easily would never have made it this far, and for good reason. Besides, a little fear can be an asset to a watcher. Keeps them from taking the kind of foolish risks that might put them on the wrong end of a swinging mace." Stein's gaze slid down the length of Giles' lame leg as he said it, a smug smile on his lips. No one outside the inner circle could ever hope to get away with such blatant goading. Very few inside the inner circle would attempt it either. Willow was sure she would have got an earful if she'd made the same comment.

But as it was Stein who'd said it, Giles only smiled thinly and replied, "Next time I'll simply die and save you the bother."

The two men laughed loudly at that, an inside joke completely lost on anyone else. Willow knew that Stein had saved Giles' life that day, and that Giles had left Stein in charge of the Council while he recuperated, never fully taking back the reins. Stein would head the Council when Giles stepped down. It wasn't official or even common knowledge yet, but Willow had been part of the discussion, had in fact turned down the position herself. Wesley couldn't accept, not with a slayer assigned to him, a slayer who would, in all likelihood, be the next Slayer. So Stein was the next logical candidate, and he had found no slayer of his own, not in all these years, almost as if he had known he was meant for this instead.

Stein had been in the first group of new watchers, the very first they'd tried the spell on, in fact. A bit of Giles' and Wesley's blood, injected with magic, to give each new recruit whatever it was that had made the watcher bloodlines so unique, whatever it was that Sabrina had tried to steal with Camela's sword, whatever it was that had allowed them to find their slayers and perform their sacred duty. Steadily, Giles had slowly begun to replenish the pool of watchers in this way.

Stein had come to them through Winifred, who had met him at a physics symposium. His real name was something plain, something Willow had possibly never been told and certainly could not recall. By then he'd been called the next Einstein for so long, since his second year at graduate school, that the name just stuck. Stein O'Neal. No one in Sunnydale knew him by anything else.

The name was not undeserved. Willow found she had competition for once: someone who could surpass her in academics, who could equal her in computers. Sometimes, when he talked about super string theory, she knew how other people must have felt around her on occasion. Xander thrilled at the opportunity to finally see _her_ glassy eyed stare.

She had Stein beat in the magic department at least, and yet he could put her on the defensive, even there. He had been the hardest sell of any recruit. Usually it was a Matrix deal: vampires and demons are real. Red pill, blue pill, which is it gonna be? Go back home or join our fight? He had stayed, but she wondered if he ever truly believed. From the moment she'd seen her childhood friend, Jesse, dragged off by vampires, gotten bit herself and then saved by some quick dusting on Buffy's part, Willow had needed no further convincing. She had soaked it all in: the books, the magic, the monsters, and the prophecies. She had accepted it all. Stein challenged everything. As his instructor, Willow had needed to do more than teach the magic, she'd needed to _prove_ the magic. It wasn't enough for him to know _how_ to do the spell; he needed to understand _why_ it worked in the first place. And those were the answers she just didn't have for him. Somehow, that made her feel inadequate next to him, even when she possessed the superior knowledge and skills.

"Faith?" Stein lowered his voice, leaning closer to Giles. Wesley and Willow each stepped nearer, closing ranks and shielding the conversation from eavesdroppers.

Giles shook his head solemnly. "One system after another is shutting down. The doctors say it would take a miracle to keep her going much longer." A deep breath, and he squared his shoulders, as if refusing to give in to despair. He tapped his cane twice to emphasize his next words. "Not that we haven't had a last minute miracle before. Now, if you'll excuse me." He slipped past them and walked off to mingle with another group of watchers, not giving anyone time for a pessimistic reply.

Wesley, Willow, and Stein shared significant, worried looks.

"He's in denial," Wesley concluded.

"Big time," Willow agreed. "I'm thinking he invented denial, patented it, and gets royalties every time someone refuses to see the obvious."

"Someone should speak to him," Stein suggested. "Make him see that this is hopeless. Pull the plug, deal, and move on. We're more than a month without a slayer as it is."

"And we'll be another two years without one even so," Wesley reminded him.

Stein threw his fellow watcher a skeptical glare. "Something tells me he might make an exception for any impending apocalypses. _You_ wouldn't have any reservations about turning her loose before fifteen, would you?"

Wesley fidgeted for a moment before meeting the other man's stare. "As her watcher, I would prefer not to. However… in the event it becomes necessary, I have stepped up her training as much as I can."

"As much as he'll _allow_ you to, you mean," Stein corrected. "Let's all be honest with each other here. She's his blind spot. It's understandable. He's her father. But that's exactly why he shouldn't be in charge of these decisions."

"And you should?" Willow crossed her arms. Out of the corner of her eye she could see Wesley gearing up to step between them. "Look, I've tried talking to him, and I'll talk to him again. But if you're planning mutiny here, you might just end up the one who's ousted, Buster." She wanted to poke him in the chest to punctuate 'Buster,' but he had a very muscular chest and was very much larger than her. She chickened out and settled for jutting her chin out defiantly.

Wesley wasn't needed to play peacemaker. Stein backed down of his own accord. Hands held out to offer a truce, he assured her, "No one's suggesting mutiny; just a conversation, an attempt to help him see reality. And you probably have a better shot of getting through to him than either of us."

"Alright." Willow reluctantly let her guard down, uncrossing her arms and relaxing her stance. "I'll take another crack at it. Tomorrow. Right now, I'm going to have a drink, possibly with alcohol, then a large slice of cake with extra frosting, and possibly start up a rousing game of Pictionary. I'm going to have some fun, dammit, and I'm going to make everyone else have some too!" She turned on her heel and set off to do just that.

* * *

Robin straddled the windowsill, waiting for her nerves to settle. Her heart was pounding, her face flush with guilt. She never broke rules, not like this, not in a very long time. Sneaking out after dark two nights in a row to work magic no one would approve of… But she was more afraid of being Called than she was of being caught.

Screwing up her courage, she swung her other leg over, feet dangling out over the two-story drop. _Don't look down_. Too late. She couldn't believe her brother actually _liked_ climbing. She reached for the nearest branch, bark scraping against her skin.

"Where do you think you're going?"

She missed her grab and wobbled off balance for a moment, snatching the window frame with her other hand to steady herself. "Alex!" Her voice was a shouted whisper, sharp enough to emphasize her irritation without being loud enough to raise an alarm downstairs.

"Same place you snuck out to last night?" he guessed.

"So what if it is? How's it any of _your_ business?"

He had shut the door behind him and kept his voice hushed as well. He had no desire to involve any authority figures. After all, she could get him in far more trouble than he could ever get her. "Because I covered for you last night, and I'll probably have to cover for you again tonight."

Her attitude softened. "You covered for me?"

"'Course I did." He climbed up to sit on the windowsill beside her. "Why you doing this? Sneaking off?"

"I told you before: I don't wanna be the next Slayer. He promised to help me do a spell so I won't be."

"Yeah, but I didn't think you'd really do it." Alex frowned, and Robin felt her stomach knot up. He was the last person she would have expected disappointment from. "And if you're not Called, who will be? Huh, Robin? You think about that?"

"I don't know, and I don't care, as long as it's not me. As long as it's never me. Please, just this once? You'll never have to cover for me again. I swear. Tell Uncle John... tell him I'm tired after training and went to sleep early."

She could tell he had his doubts. Their sudden role reversal had him off balance. But in the end, he relented. "Be careful. It's after dark. Dad'll kill me if you get nicked by a vampire. And when you get back, I want to hear everything." He offered her a helping hand as she clambered out onto the tree branch and then stood vigil until she'd landed safely on the ground. She waved goodbye to him before setting off.

She checked her watch. Her father wouldn't be back from the initiation ceremony until at least eleven o'clock. She took a deep breath. Plenty of time….

Ethan was waiting for her outside his apartment, sitting on the curb and smoking a cigarette. "I'd offer you one," he assured her, "but I believe I'll be corrupting you enough for one night with just the magic." He did offer her a can of soda, however, as he casually strolled past her, heading away from the main part of town and obviously expecting her to follow. "It's a bit of a walk. I hope you're up for it."

"So there is a spell?" she asked eagerly, jogging slightly to keep pace with his longer strides.

"I think it should do the trick. Granted, the witch is rather ancient and senile, so it might amount to nothing."

That didn't inspire her confidence. "Couldn't _you_ please do the spell?"

"Ha! Unfortunately, I've grown rather attached to all my limbs. I'd prefer they stay attached. That means your father's not to sense a drop of my magic on you." He paused to stamp out his cigarette butt and pull out his own can of soda from his jacket pocket. He popped the top and continued walking, slowing his pace slightly to accommodate her.

She tried to engage him in conversation, but he seemed too preoccupied with navigating their route to pay her any mind. Sometimes he'd reach out with one hand and close his eyes, as if feeling for an invisible something beyond her awareness. That meant they were probably going somewhere that was cloaked, somewhere you couldn't get to in the ordinary fashion.

She shrugged and drank her own pop, shadowing him silently as he led her further and further from home. It seemed like they walked for hours, which couldn't be right, because they never actually got past the city limits.

Heavy. Her feet were getting heavier and heavier with each step. Ethan didn't seem to notice until he'd gotten a half block ahead of her. He stopped then to let her catch up, but by that point her feet had planted themselves where she stood. Too tired. Too tired to move.

As a little girl, she would lift up her arms for her father to carry her. She'd wake when her head touched the pillow, and he'd kiss her on the forehead, and all her fears would be banished. He'd been Giles to her then, not Father. Other little girls had Daddies– she'd had one once, too– but she was the only little girl in the whole world who had a Giles, and she liked it that way. Fire. Smoke. Sirens. Huddled in terror until he appeared like some angel to rescue her. She still remembered that day. She still dreamt about it sometimes, nightmares painted with splattered blood and muffled screams. She would wake curled up in the corner of her bed with tears drying on her cheeks. The smell of burnt toast in the morning would send her retching into the bathroom.

The can of pop slipped through her fingers, bounced across the ground twice, and then rolled. Ethan was at her side now, asking her something. She heard only half of each word, like phoning her grandparents in Spain and getting a really bad connection. Her eyes followed the rolling can of pop, the word Coke appearing and disappearing over and over again until it dropped over the curb and came to rest in the gutter.

"Drugged," she managed, though her tongue felt as if it was growing too big for her mouth. The whole situation struck her as funny, and she started to giggle uncontrollably.

Ethan grabbed her by the shoulders, twisting her to get a good look in her eyes. He was still trying to talk to her in disjointed syllables. She recognized her name. She clung to him to keep from toppling over. "Why?" she demanded. She'd trusted him. Why had he done this?

He eased her to the ground as her knees gave way. His lips were moving, but the sound didn't match. A poorly dubbed movie in a language she didn't understand. Desperately, she grabbed him by his shirtfront and forced the words out. "Alex knows. Tell Father." Alex knew she'd gone to Ethan. If she didn't come home, he'd tell. And her father would come. Giles would come.

Ethan lifted her up into his arms, strong arms like her father's. Her head lolled side to side, finally resting wearily against his shoulder. Eyes blinked in an effort to remain open, vision blurring. Her heartbeat thudded loudly in her own ears.

The heartbeat became drums. Drumming, drumming, thrumming in time to her beating heart. Beneath the steady rhythm was only wind, wind across wide open spaces. She opened her eyes. All was bright. The ground was soft and yielding beneath her, her fingers sinking into sand as she sat up. An ocean of the stuff surrounded her in all directions, small islands of dry brush the only thing breaking up the endless horizon.

"Where am I?"

She caught movement from the corner of her eye, but when she turned there was nothing. "Hello?" She started walking, the terrain never changing beneath her feet, the sky never changing above her. She shielded her eyes with one hand against the sun.

And then she felt it, a presence behind her. Spider sense, her mother would have said.

"No. Choice!" The voice was deep, guttural, and angry, each word forced out with great effort.

Robin spun and caught a flash of a black woman, white paint smeared across her face and arms, crouched down, moving on all fours, stalking her like a cat. Another flash, and there was only sand where she had been a moment before.

"Really disappointing, B."

Robin whipped around again. Faith and Buffy had replaced the desert scene like a mirage solidifying into an oasis. They were standing in the kitchen at home. The counters and floor were draped with cloth, and the two slayers were diligently painting the walls red.

Buffy stepped back and surveyed their work, offering her own opinion. "I don't know. I kinda like it. I mean, if you can't get the blood out, might as well make sure it doesn't show."

"Not what I'm talkin' about." Faith wasn't admiring the walls, she was looking straight at Robin. "I meant… You think your kid's gonna be a chip off the old block, then bam!" Faith punched her fist in emphasis. "Disappointment. And you wonder what went wrong. She couldn't have got that yellow streak from you. Not in a million years. Even Giles's got the stones. So how'd the pair of you whelp such a whiny little weakling?"

"Oh that." Buffy shrugged and slapped red paint on the window panes, carelessly splattering it on herself as well. The light through the glass darkened as she painted over it in red. "Sometimes these things can skip a generation, you know."

"Fine for you, but where does that leave me? Dying, dying, dying. Oh, yeah, still dying. How long you think it's gonna take me, B?" Faith offered out her own paintbrush to Robin. "Maybe we should let her have a go anyway. She can't be any worse than a reformed homicidal rogue slayer now, can she?"

"Try not to miss any spots, honey," Buffy advised her daughter helpfully.

But the brush transformed into a knife as soon as her fingers closed around it, an ornate knife slick with blood, and she dropped it as if burned. It tumbled through the air in slow motion, becoming a paintbrush again the moment it struck the ground, splattering red all over the neat white canvas draping.

"Or maybe we _should_ skip over her," Faith concluded, advancing on her, the same knife now suddenly clutched in her hand. Robin backed up, one step at a time, trembling where she stood. Faith had always terrified her. The slayer swished her long black hair over one shoulder and started drawing lazy little x's in the air with the point of her blade. "Slice, slice, slice. Or maybe just one ugh!" Faith jabbed forward in demonstration, and Robin jerked back reflexively. "Slide it in her like butter and put her out of the running. After all, you did it to me, B. Whadya say?"

Robin fired a pleading look in her mother's direction. But Buffy only threw up her hands in defeat. "Oh, honey, look what you made me do." Red paint dripped down the front of her overalls, one smear of red across her cheek. "I'll have to change now, can't go patrolling like this."

Faith smiled. Her lips were the same color red as the walls. "Hmm. She didn't say no."

Robin sprinted out of the kitchen, back door banging behind her, and vaulted off the porch. Thrust back into the desert, she squinted against the sun glaring too brightly in her eyes. Searching for escape, rescue, her father. Feet moving so fast, she failed to catch herself as the ground began to slope. She stumbled, then rolled, falling down the hill, rolling like the Coke can down the sidewalk. Sand gave way to grass. She clutched at roots, grass, rocks, anything to stop her descent. The daylight was dimming, storm clouds rolling in overhead. The air smelled like rain.

She came to an abrupt stop at the bottom of the hill, an all-too-familiar cave waiting for her like the jaws of some great beast. She backpedaled, crab-like, scurrying to find a way back up the hill. But Faith was waiting for her at the top with her wicked blade and her cruel taunts, and Robin was trapped.

"Why are you afraid?" a voice from behind asked her softly.

She turned, relief flooding her features when she recognized the speaker. "Aunt Dawn!" Her aunt was leaning against the entrance to the cave, her hair done up in tiny ringlets and dressed in a flowing lavender gown like she'd worn in her last movie. Whatever momentary relief Robin felt dried up in the next instant. A second figure moved into her peripheral vision from the side, the figure of the black woman from before. Lithe, sleek, stalking closer, movements graceful as a cat, power rippling through muscles beneath dirty rags, dreadlocks swaying with her movements, head shaking slightly as her eyes roamed over Robin, sizing her up.

Robin stood completely rigid, frozen with terror. Her voice quavered as she asked it, "Who are you?"

It was Dawn's voice that answered, reciting the lines, acting as the mouthpiece for this primal being who couldn't speak for herself. "I have no name. No words. I am the hunt, the kill: action, motion, the striking blow, the fatal cry. I bring death to the dead."

Robin shrank into herself as the primitive woman came closer, circling her, sniffing at her, balanced on the balls of her feet, body in constant motion like a shark, a predator. "A Slayer?" Robin asked.

"The first." Dawn confirmed, and the first Slayer straightened proudly. "Why are you afraid?"

"Because Faith is going to make me go next."

The Slayer glanced at the cave and then back at Robin, her face a mask of confusion. Dawn traced her hands delicately over the stones marking the entrance and corrected Robin gently, "No. Not that. Why are you afraid of an enemy already vanquished?"

"My mother died here."

"Yes. In a time past. But now it is nothing but rock and dirt and moss. She is not here. There is nothing here. Nothing to hold you back. It is time for you to walk the path. Your time now to fight and kill and die."

"No!" Robin shouted it, anger thawing her fear. She spat it at the first Slayer, who personified this uninvited destiny. "I don't want to be like you. I don't want any of it. I don't want to be Chosen."

The first Slayer puffed out her chest, leaning into Robin's personal space, nose to nose. She spoke with her own voice this time, not Dawn's, her voice rough and raspy with disuse. "No. Choice."

A bald man with round specs stepped between them and proudly showed off a slice of American cheese he'd cut the center out of. Sliding one finger through the hole, he intoned ominously, "One cheese to rule them all."

Robin backed away from them, from her famous aunt and the first Slayer and the strange man crooning "Precious" to his cheese slice. "Get out of my dreams," she demanded. "I don't want slayer dreams. I don't want any of it. Don't you get it? I suck at it! I should never have been next. And if all the other potentials hadn't been killed, I wouldn't _be_ next. I can't save the world. I can't save anyone. I couldn't even save… Trust me on this: you don't want me anymore than I want you."

"Is that how you truly feel?"

Robin didn't recognize the frail, ghostly female voice that whispered to her from behind. Thin, bony fingers wrapped themselves around her upper arms and prevented her from turning to see who the new arrival was. The smell of her father's library wafted over her: the smell of ancient, dusty tomes and cracking, brittle parchment, the heady smell of ink and tea and incense. The tingling feeling of magic crawled across her skin until she itched all over. Only now did she understand that the sensation had always come from the magic calling to her own buried power. She felt the spell surrounding her, felt the answering itch of her own warded magic as it tested the boundaries her father and Willow had set.

The words slid around her, soft and intangible as mist. With the words flowed the magic, an incantation that only awaited her answer. "You would freely relinquish the birthright bestowed upon you?"

"Yes."

"No!" Dawn shouted. The first Slayer raised her bone knife in challenge. Faith sprinted down the hill towards them. The man with the cheese nibbled along the edges. A third gnarled, wrinkled hand reached past Robin's shoulders to wave them all back. With a flick of a wrist, they all went flying.

"Who are you?" Robin asked. She still hadn't seen the old woman's face. The first two hands kept her pinned, facing forward. The third hand was now petting her hair in long, rhythmic strokes. She glimpsed a flash of silver rings as a fourth hand came forward to lazily twirl a lock of hair around one finger.

"Best if you don't see me, little one." A fifth hand crept along her collarbone, pausing at the top of her sternum. Robin's breathing quickened. This was no dream. The hand plunged into her chest, extracting something bright and shiny and perfect. There was no pain, just the sense of being hollowed out and empty, the best part of her plucked from inside and resting now in the old woman's palm: a little ball of shimmering light which soared up into the sky. As it rose, it transformed into a majestic hawk, gracefully gliding across the open sky until it disappeared over the horizon. For one insane moment, Robin wanted to call it back.

She fainted, five hands catching her before she could fall.

She blinked. The world had suddenly become so dark. She thought she felt the first drops of rain.

When she opened her eyes, she was lying on Ethan's couch.

"Thank the gods." He sat next to her, and she scooted back, watching him suspiciously. "It's been more than an hour. Didn't think you'd sleep so long. You have to get home before your father figures out you're missing. Or at least before he can come looking for you here." He handed her a glass of water. "Here, drink this."

She pushed the glass away. "I don't think so."

He sighed. "Come now. There's nothing in it." He sipped some himself to prove it.

She took the glass when he offered it this time, watching him intently as she drank. She was so thirsty. Like a hollow place had opened up inside her, and she had to fill it with something. She passed him back the empty glass. "You drugged me."

He seemed hurt by the accusation in her voice, or at least he was pretending to be hurt. "Unfortunate, but necessary. Surely you didn't think I'd double-crossed you? Sold you out to the highest bidder?" He shrugged, acknowledging the validity of her suspicions. "True. The next slayer's worth a pretty penny on the black market. I'd be lying if I said the thought hadn't crossed my mind."

"You didn't sell me."

"Ah, your mother's gift for stating the obvious. No, I didn't. You happened to mention that your brother knew where you were. I believe we already covered the me-avoiding-the-arse-kicking-your-father-would-so-love-to-deliver aspect of this arrangement in a previous conversation. Needless to say, I was forced to remove the merchandise from the market. Pity. I could have retired on that."

"You were never planning to sell me." Having accomplished her goal, Robin felt quite a bit braver. And having been duped by Ethan already, she was less inclined to take him at face value. "You'd already worked out the spell with that lady. You took me to her, and she did the magic to stop me from being Chosen. Just like you promised."

"Such undying faith! Is idiocy contagious in this city? Something the Hellmouth gives off?" Ethan got up off the couch. He shook his head and started pacing as he talked to himself. "Willow thinks she can reform me. Ripper knows better, and yet even he always takes me back eventually. And now here sits one little girl who actually believes I'm a man of my word! I ask you: what in god's name did I ever do to justify this faith? Nothing good, I assure, that wasn't also balanced with something just as rotten."

He stopped pacing suddenly, shoved his hands in his pockets, and looked down on her. "You got your wish. I found the spell and the 'someone' to cast it. I arranged the whole bloody thing. And did you ever ask yourself why? Why was I helping you?"

"Because… Because…" She cast about for an answer. _Because I asked you to_, sounded incredibly naïve in hindsight, and the truth was that she had never considered any other explanation for his charity. "Because you were friends with my father, with Willow. Because you came after Mother died."

"Because I like screwing with the Cosmic Plan. Because everyone expected you to be Chosen, and I hate predictable endings. Because someone paid me a tidy sum to make sure you _weren't_ next."

"You got _paid_?" Somehow that seemed the biggest slap in the face.

"Of course. What kind of do-gooder did you take me for?" Ethan strode to the front door and opened it. "You got what you came for. I did what you asked. What do you care if I made a deal on the side? Now get lost. Go home and plan out your plain, ordinary, boring, destiny-free little life."

Robin jumped to her feet and stormed over to the front door. "Maybe I will. Maybe I'll start by telling my father that you drugged me and tricked me. What if I tell him what you did?"

"What _you_ did, you mean." He ticked off the list of her offenses on his fingers. "Sneaking out two nights in a row, contacting someone I'm sure he warned you was dangerous and untrustworthy, soliciting said person's help in performing a difficult and untested spell that could irrevocably alter or extinguish the slayer line forever. On the scale of bad deeds, mine hardly rate."

Robin's attention was stuck on one word. "Extinguish?"

He patted her on the head like a small child. "Let's see if another girl follows Faith before we start worrying about 'what-ifs,' okay? And before you get it in your head to make any weeping confessions… Well, who are you going to tell your father helped you?"

"You."

"Who?" He bent over to put them at eye level with each other. He was grinning broadly, seeming to enjoy this part. "Say it with me: E-than Rayne."

He sounded out the syllables slowly, but she just stood there with her jaw hanging open.

With one finger, he gently closed her mouth. "But you can't say it. My name. Doesn't roll off the tongue like it used to. Just a bit of a bonus the old bird threw in for me. I've gotten better at covering my own ass over the years. Not as fond of getting caught as I used to be. Now run along home, little girl. Wish granted. Problem solved. Don't expect me to deal with the fallout if you wind up with a whole new set of problems. And don't mistake me for your friendly benefactor: This favor was gratis, but the next will cost you."

"I won't be back," she promised, stomping out the front door. "I hope I never see you again!"

He chuckled and leaned against the doorframe, watching her storm down the hallway. "Now you're starting to sound like your father." When she had reached the outside door, he tacked on, "Good luck with the magic. Best stick with beginner spells until you get the knack."

She turned, but he'd already shut and bolted his apartment door.

She mentally reran his parting words before their meaning clicked: the old witch had done more than free her from a slayer's fate, she'd undone her father and Willow's spell.

Robin had magic again.

* * *

The twins were late coming down for breakfast. Their eggs were getting cold, and Giles was going to be late for his meeting if they didn't hurry. Willow was nibbling on a stolen slice of toast.

"Chill, Giles. I can take them. Better I'm late than you."

"That's not the point. Neither of us should be late." He paced back to the foot of the stairs and shouted up, "Your five minutes were up ten minutes ago!" Flipping open his pocketwatch, he checked the time again. "What could possibly be keeping them?"

"Well, you know, Robin's at that age where girls like to…" She tapered off when she caught his glare. "…like to play with Barbies and dollhouses and have nothing whatsoever to do with boys or makeup or stuffing Kleenex anywhere… You know, I think I'll wait in the car if that's okay."

Willow fled.

A stampede down the staircase predicted the twin's arrival. They raced past him, snagged Pop Tarts from the kitchen cabinet and were out the front door in a blur. Giles sighed. Pop Tarts. Buffy would be proud.

He followed them at a more sedate pace. The pair of them were already in Willow's backseat. Apparently, it had been decided that she would drive them. He paused to wish them a good day at school, reminded Alex of his language lessons and Robin of her training after school. And since Willow had kindly started him worrying, he reassured himself that Robin hadn't indulged in any makeup.

Giles reached his hand through the open window and tilted his daughter's chin up so he could get a better look at her face. She looked tired. "Robin, are you all right? You seem different… Tired… There's something… something…"

Before he could ponder too long on the something different, Alex leaned over his sister and vied for his father's attention. "Dad, can't I miss languages tonight? Some of the kids are staying after and playing—"

"Schoolwork comes first," Giles insisted. He ignored the sad puppy eyes he got from both his son and Willow. She always wanted things to be easier for the children. Easy didn't build character, didn't prepare them for the world. If she were a parent herself, she'd understand. Xander would understand.

Strangely enough, Xander was waiting for him when he arrived at Council Headquarters.

"Problems with the expansion project?"

Xander shook his head, falling in line as they walked towards the main conference room. "No, but I need to borrow you for a minute."

"I'm on my way to a meeting. Can it wait?"

"It's waited too long already." Xander steered him down a different corridor. "Let's play hooky. Wes and Stein said they've got it covered."

They ended up in a mostly deserted wing of the Library, and Xander jumped up to have a seat on the balcony railing. Giles crossed his arms and tapped his cane against the side of his leg. He was beginning to suspect what this was all about.

"This is an intervention, isn't it? Wesley and Stein put you up to it?"

Xander shrugged. "They put Willow up to it, and she passed the buck on to me. So yeah, kinda, in a round about way, I guess they did. And it is."

"Faith is not dead yet."

"This isn't about Faith. It's not even about Buffy." Xander pulled his car keys from his pocket and absently rubbed at the little clay charm he had hanging from his key ring. A baby's handprint preserved in ceramic. His good luck charm. Xander usually acted as the comic relief for the group, but sometimes he could turn on a dime and surprise them all with his wisdom and insight. It was that serious face he showed Giles now. "You're not pulling the plug on Robin, you know. She'll still be here when it's all over."

"For a while."

Xander continued worrying at his good luck charm, pressing his thumbs in the grooves left by tiny fingers. "I don't get it. You never gave up on Buffy, why are you giving up on Robin?"

"Buffy made it to 31. That made her the longest-lived slayer of all time. Robin should have more to look forward to than that. She deserves more than a hard life and an early death. It's what… what Buffy wanted for her."

"Bull."

"Excuse me?" Giles was thrown off balance by Xander's vehemence, and by his sheer arrogance in claiming to know what Buffy would have wanted.

"If Buffy were still alive, you'd be having this same argument with her. The most important thing I ever learned from her is that you do the best with the hand you're dealt. You fight with what you've got. If all you've got is a pool cue, you don't stand around hoping for a crossbow."

"Xander—"

"Just let me finish, 'cause I'm going somewhere with this. You think Buffy felt sorry for herself? You think she would have traded her life to be any of those other kids at our school who got to leave Sunnydale and never look back? I've been to the reunion. Most of them put on thirty pounds, found out the high school sweetheart they married is a total loser, and have no more ambition or meaning in their lives than the next promotion or the next new car.

"So Buffy died at 31. She lived more in those years than most people do their whole lives. Sometimes things sucked, and sometimes they didn't, and every once in a while she managed a little bit of happiness. But she _lived_, Giles. She didn't wall herself up in a cave until it was safe to come out. She went to prom and college and her sister's school plays. She fell in love a few times, married a pretty okay guy, had some babies, found a job she loved to do, and made a difference in the world every night. 'Cause you and I both know the world is never going to be safe. Sure, Robin might get killed by a demon while fulfilling her sacred destiny or—" He tossed Giles his keys. The ceramic handprint had worn smooth over the years, no fingerprints left, the etched name 'Zoey' nearly faded off the back. "—or she might end up in the hospital with meningitis.

"I know what you're afraid of, Giles. I lost my daughter. It's every bit as awful as you imagine it is. And if I thought this was going to buy Robin even one more day, I'd say go for it. Stick all the wires you like in Faith and squeeze every last minute you can out of her. But you're not buying Robin time. You're keeping her in limbo. And every day that you continue with this doomed holding pattern, you send her a message: you tell her that you don't think she can be the Slayer."

"No," Giles protested, although with very little fire. It was difficult to argue with Xander while holding his dead child's clay handprint. "That's not what I think."

"That's what she sees. Everyday that you put off the inevitable, you erode her confidence a little more. Robin will be the Slayer, Giles. Nothing you or I can do will change that now. And if she doesn't think she can do it, she's gonna be one of the shortest lived slayers on record. And _that_ is something you still have the power to change."

Giles bowed his head. He had clung to this last bit of hope for so long, he was afraid of the fall when he finally did let go. "When you lost Zoey, there was Anya. You had each other. If I lose Robin… it will be like losing Buffy a second time. I can't face that alone."

"You won't be alone. You'll still have Alex. And all of us. Plus, there's something you keep forgetting: Faith is the one who's dying, not Robin. And after she's Called, we're all going to do everything we can to make sure Robin beats her mom's record. A whole new record: forty, fifty even. After all, my Nick has been carving the initials R.G. on the trees out back for a while now, and I'd hate to see his little heart broken."

Giles chuckled, remembering his daughter's opinions of the six-year-old's crush. He offered Xander back his good luck charm. Their fingers touched as it changed hands, and Giles smiled sadly at his dear friend, hoping he would see in his eyes the emotions not expressed in words.

"Do you want me to come to the hospital with you?"

Giles shook his head. "No. I can do this part on my own. But thank you, Xander, for forcing me to see my own shortsightedness."

"All part of the service." Xander saluted casually. "Drywall, concrete, roofing, and the occasional nudge in the right direction."

"Congratulate yourself on an effective speech."

He shrugged. "After Willow put me up to this, I spent most of last night trying to figure out what to say to you. Can't even remember what I had planned out. Probably the same stuff everyone's been saying to you all month." Xander held up the ceramic handprint, as if it explained everything. "But when it counted, the words just came." He pocketed his keys and nodded towards the exit. "I better go check on the crew, or you'll never get your dorms finished before the next batch of watcher trainees wants to move in. And you better get to the hospital before you change your mind. I don't want to do this all over again tomorrow."

Xander hopped down off his railing seat and had barely gone five steps towards the exit before Giles called him back. The watcher didn't lift his eyes from the ornate scrollwork at the top of his cane.

"Xander…" He took a deep breath and swallowed past the lump in his throat. "I think… I think Buffy would be a lovely name."

"Really?" Xander's tone sounded doubtful. "I think it would be a little weird, don't you? I mean: there'll only ever be one Buffy. It was Anya's idea, the naming. Do you like it? We could if you want us to. But I don't think it really matters anyway. I'm sure it'll be another boy."

Giles smiled and shook his head. Five boys. He strongly suspected Anya would push to keep trying for a girl. "Whichever you decide, you have my blessing to use the name."

* * *

Faith died before dinner with very little fanfare. If she had died even one day sooner, it would have fallen to Robin to succeed her. But the Chosen One's heir had bargained away that right with magic. And so Fate Chose another path and another champion. Two twists of fate accomplished with one spell.

Next: Part 3: The Search for the Slayer


	3. Search for the Slayer

ORIGINALLY POSTED: February 26, 2003  
TITLE: Unchosen  
AUTHOR: JK Philips  
RATING: PG  
SUMMARY: Sequel to the Death Brings Clarity saga, now nearly ten years after The Fine Art of Blackmail. Giles wanted to prevent his daughter from inheriting her mother's destiny. He wanted to give his son the choice he never had. He wanted Buffy to live a lifetime beside him. Fate had other plans...  
SPOILERS: Everything up to "The Gift"  
DISCLAIMER: I do not own these characters; they are the property of Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy & Fox. I simply am doing this for fun, and non-profit use.

* * *

Part 3: The Search for the Slayer

Robin was just clearing the dinner dishes when the phone rang, and her father disappeared. He'd picked them up from school, excused her from training and Alex from lessons, and taken them to watch movies at the downtown multiplex. Popcorn and Twizzlers had ruined their dinner, which didn't matter so much, since they sat through two movies in a row and didn't get back home to even bother with dinner until half past eight. If her father hadn't been so preoccupied with his pager, the evening might have been almost perfect. But he'd checked the display almost every fifteen minutes through the first movie. Even worse was when he'd stopped checking the display altogether.

"Do you think he knows?" Robin whispered, handing her brother the rest of the dirty plates and silverware.

Alex set aside the soapy dish sponge for the moment and scouted around the corner to make sure their father was definitely occupied elsewhere. "I don't think so. I'm sure he would've said something. But he was all nice and let us play hooky from all the slayer/watcher stuff. Movies and junk food and no important Council calls that couldn't wait."

"But they do that sometimes. Parents. They do really nice things, just so you'll feel really guilty about whatever you did wrong until you just can't stand it anymore and just _have_ to come clean." She stared out the kitchen doorway in a mild panic, expecting her father to come swooping in at any moment to confirm her fears. "He knows. I'm telling you: this… this bracelet thing doesn't work at all." She twisted said bracelet nervously around her wrist, the little glass beads knocking together.

He placed his hand over hers, stilling her movements. "Well, it's not going to work if you break it. Look, Aunt Willow drove us to school this morning, and if she'd sensed even a little bit of magic, she would have said something. So the only way you're going to get caught is if you keep acting suspicious."

"Easy for you to say. You've had way more practice at this kinda stuff than I have. This morning… all he said was 'something's different,' and I almost cracked."

"I know. But I distracted him, and everything's still cool. Just stop worrying… and stop playing with the bracelet or you'll break it." He swatted her hand away after she'd begun absently twisting the string of beads again. "Aunt Anya'll notice if I have to steal you a second one."

That was one more thing to feel guilty for. Returning home after her adventure with Ethan, she'd slipped into her brother's room and spilled all the details. Terrified that their father would sense her newly freed magic and learn what she'd done, she had pleaded with her brother for help. So even though it was Alex who had technically snuck out in the dead of night with a spare key to the Magic Box he'd swiped from his father's bureau, she was ultimately to blame for his theft. He'd known Aunt Anya stocked cloaking charms. Magical items constituted part of his watcher's training. Eventually it would be part of her training too, after she'd mastered her basic combat skills. And cloaking charms could hide a person's magic from those who could sense it.

Which would only help her if her father failed to notice that she was wearing stolen goods.

"This is never gonna work!" she lamented.

"Stop being such a baby," he scolded, returning to washing the dishes. "I get away with way worse."

"But sometimes you get caught."

"Sometimes," he agreed reluctantly.

But not often, she had to admit. In trouble for skipping school, he'd escaped discovery on the forged report cards. Nine out of ten detentions never registered on their father's radar, and he had yet to be caught sneaking out of the house even once.

She wondered if that bothered him, the not being caught, because part of her really wanted to be found out. The guilt and apprehension were probably worse than whatever punishment her father might mete out, and it would be a relief to be rid of the weight of her awful secret.

She reconsidered when their father returned to the kitchen. The grim look on his face resolved her inner conflict. She hoped he never found out what she'd done.

"Robin, may I speak with you privately?"

Cold dread settled in the pit of her stomach. She shared a panicked look with her brother, the unspoken question passing between them: did he know? She followed meekly behind her father, mentally building herself up for whatever she might face.

He settled them both on the couch. He didn't meet her eyes, which was fine by her.

"Faith died a few hours ago, Robin."

"Oh." That wasn't how she'd expected the conversation to start. Robin wasn't sure what she should be feeling. She supposed she should be sorry or sad or something. But she had always been a little afraid of the dark slayer, and after Buffy's death, she had hated Faith for being the one who lived. "Am I the Slayer now?" she asked him. She didn't feel any different. She selfishly hoped the spell had worked. It meant someone even younger and less ready would be Called, or possibly no one at all, but she didn't care. As long as it wasn't her.

Her father merely nodded, not knowing about the spell, knowing only that Robin was the oldest of the potential slayers and, even at the tender age of thirteen, was the likeliest candidate. "You may have dreams tonight," he warned her.

"With Faith?"

He nodded. "Perhaps other slayers. Perhaps even your mother."

He said it so wistfully, with such longing, that she wished she could give him the dreams meant for her, wished he could be the one to see Buffy again. All she could give him was a brave smile. "Doesn't sound so bad, I guess."

"I'm told they can be. Bad, that is. You might dream of their deaths, might watch your mother... die... again." He did raise his eyes to meet hers then, reaching out one hand to grip her shoulder. "Whatever you need, whatever concerns you have, I'm here for you."

"I know."

He pulled her into a tight embrace. She closed her eyes, rubbing her cheek against his shirt, letting the feeling of being wrapped up snug against him chase away her fears, pretending for a moment that she was a little girl again, that everything was back the way it should be, that she hadn't ruined everything for all of them.

She felt the tears start and knew that he could feel them too as she shook in his arms. He hugged her more tightly, pressing kisses on the top of her head and crooning meaningless platitudes to her softly as she sobbed. He rubbed her back in slow circles like he had that awful night when they'd come home alone. Alex had locked himself in the bathroom, and Giles had sat on the bottom step, and Robin had curled up on the floor with her head in his lap. He'd rubbed circles across her back for hours while she cried. And he'd stared at nothing the entire time. Said nothing. Did nothing but rub steady circles across her back.

She couldn't relive that night.

If there was no other reason to pray Ethan's spell had worked, this would have been enough: she couldn't dream of her mother's death.

* * *

The sun shone down bright and warm. Giles, stretched out on the soft grass at the top of the hill, watched his slayer train. The slow, focused, and precise movements of her warm-up routine flowed effortlessly. Angel had started her training in tai chi. The brooding and meditative discipline suited the similarly brooding and meditative vampire, so it was no wonder that Angel favored it. That Buffy had taken so strongly to it was more of a surprise. She loved a challenge though, and tai chi required more than just physical skill; it tested one's mental focus as well. Giles had added it to her training at her request. And if he took some small amount of personal satisfaction in the fact that she had advanced further under his tutelage than Angel's, well perhaps he was entitled to that bit of selfish pride.

She was exquisite in motion. Wearing just a tank top and bike shorts, nothing of her muscled form was left to the imagination. She was pure grace in the sunlight. Was there a watcher who ever lived who didn't thrill at the sight of their slayer in action? Balance, poise, power, strength.

Until their slayer stopped mid-flow and shed the mystique of the warrior like a costume, frowning at her watcher and asking with a pout, "Am I doing it wrong? 'Cause you're looking at me funny."

"I was just admiring. You're so beautiful."

She smiled, flouncing over to have a seat beside him. "This is nice, isn't it?"

"Very nice."

A hand pressed to his chest, she encouraged him to lie back, arranging herself at his side with her head resting on his arm. "You haven't had any of those other dreams for several days now."

He kissed her on the top of her head. "You must be my little dreamcatcher. They never come while you're here."

They both stared up into the blue sky above them. No tree to lie beneath; it had gone. Or perhaps had not yet grown.

"Yeah, I'm getting better with the dreaming. See, watch." She stretched her hand up towards the sky, pointing at the clouds drifting by. One of them shifted, as if through wind currents, elongating at one end, collapsing on the other, until it formed a perfect white heart against the blue sky. "See? I'm getting good."

"Lucid dreaming."

"Lucy who?"

He laughed. Sometimes he suspected she misunderstood him on purpose, just to get a rise out of him. "That's what they call it when you can control your dreams. Lucid dreaming. Unfortunately, I never mastered it myself. It certainly would have made those months after Jenny and Angelus more bearable. Not to mention every time you died."

"And when the First Slayer attacked us all in our dreams. Hey!" She rolled over on top of him, her chin resting on his chest. "Maybe that's why I beat her in my dream when none of you could. Lucid dreaming."

"Perhaps."

"You try it. Show me… show me what our kids look like now."

He closed his eyes and concentrated. He could picture them in his mind, how they had looked that afternoon when he'd picked them up from school, both of them bouncing with excitement when he'd promised them an afternoon outing rather than their usual routine. Sadly, their images remained locked inside his head; he couldn't manifest them for Buffy.

"I'm sorry."

She rolled onto her back, the pair of them laying side by side and staring up into the sky. The cloud cover was thickening. She sighed softly. "It's okay, Giles. Took me some practice to get the hang of it. Shoot, the first time I died, I could only get in your dreams that one time, and even then I couldn't do much of anything once I got there."

He turned his head to stare at her. The grass tickled his cheek. An ant crawled over his hand, and he flicked it away. She turned her head to meet his gaze, their faces only inches apart. He searched her eyes for something, anything to indicate that this was real.

"Are you saying you're Buffy?"

She gave a little shrug. "I'm not Faith."

The ache in his gut washed over him, so overpowering he needed to touch her to keep from being swept away in that tidal wave of grief. He closed the space between their mouths, kissing her like she was the only supply of air for a drowning man. She kissed him back with equal fervor, so warm, so _alive_ in his arms.

They parted breathless, their foreheads touching. His one arm lay beneath her, cradling her close, while his other hand framed her face. His voice trembled, so full of emotion. "I want so much to believe that you're real."

"Does it matter either way? If it helps, then go ahead and believe."

He shook his head, hesitant to allow himself this comfort. "Are you… still here? Watching us?"

"No. This is just… just…" She tilted her chin up to kiss him again. "Think of it as a watcher/slayer perk. I just have to be a little careful. Other slayers have pushed it too far and landed their watchers in the loony bin."

He chuckled. "Haunting me?"

Her lower lip curled out in a tiny pout. "Not in a bad way."

He considered their past dreamtime activities. "Giving me clues to something?"

"Maybe."

"Pointing me towards something?" He ran his fingers through her hair. He missed doing that. He missed sleeping with her curled against one side, one leg draped over his, and falling asleep as he toyed with her hair. His bed never seemed very comfortable anymore. "Can't you just tell me what I need to know?"

She shook her head. "You wouldn't remember it when you woke up if I did. But this…" She held her fist between them, slowly uncurling her fingers to reveal a tiny seed. "This can slip past the censors."

He plucked the little, round seed from her palm, rolling it between his fingers as he thought. "This? I don't understand."

"It's the tree we used to sit under in your dreams. It needs to be planted soon, or the sapling won't have been there."

She sat up, face lifted to the darkening sky. His side quickly cooled with the absence of her warmth. She stretched out one hand as if feeling for raindrops. "Wait until the rain stops before you plant it. It will have needed the rain."

Slowly, she rose to her feet. He followed her line of sight as it dropped down from the rain clouds rolling in overhead to instead gaze over the sloping hillside and what lay at the base of that slope.

"No," he insisted. "Buffy, I can't."

She looked over her shoulder at him. "I know. It's okay. It's almost morning, anyway. I may be the best damn lucid dreamer you ever saw, but even I can't stop the morning."

She returned to her place at his side. He closed his eyes, wrapped his arms tightly around her, and tried to forget that she would be gone when he woke.

"You can't put it off forever, Giles." Her voice was whisper soft and hot against his ear. "Sometimes you have to look back before you can look forward."

Her words echoed through his head, merging with the sound of his alarm as he was unwillingly pulled to full consciousness. He wiped his hands across his face to erase the lingering traces of sleep. His fingers came away wet with tears.

* * *

Wesley was at a loss. He tipped his head and indicated that he and Giles should confer privately. They stepped over to the practice dummy, leaving Robin standing by herself in the middle of the training room, crossbow discarded at her feet.

"There's never been an instance of delay, has there?" Wesley was searching his own memory, but coming up short.

Giles' face was a mirror of Wesley's own puzzled expression. "There have been occasions when the timing of one slayer's passing is not known, or when the next is not found immediately, but nothing to indicate a delay between the two. And we have hundreds of documented cases where we _can_ compare the loss of one slayer with the Calling of the next. The activation has always been immediate. Faith's first watcher, for instance, recorded the precise time, and it matches, right to the very minute, the moment Drusilla killed Kendra."

Wesley frowned and peered at the target once more: not a single bolt in the bull's-eye, a few in the neck and torso, one through the head, and a worrisome number scattered across the wall behind the dummy. "_My_ aim is better." The slightest flicker of a smirk twisted the corner of his mouth. He couldn't resist. "As your bankbook can attest."

Giles failed to acknowledge the reference to his loosing streak during their weekly darts match. He was busy ripping a bolt from the wall and inspecting the tip, as if the explanation could be found in faulty equipment.

Another possible explanation was worrying Wesley. "Has it occurred to you that a slayer can miss the target intentionally? Can allow herself to be taken down while sparring? Can hide her true strength?"

The cool disdain with which Giles accepted that suggestion was answer in itself. "Are you insinuating that my daughter would mislead us? In point of fact, lie?"

"She has expressed misgivings. It would be understandable—"

"That's enough!"

"No, it's not!" Wesley regretted his harsh tone immediately. Putting Giles on the defense would accomplish nothing. He softened his demeanor, lowered his voice, and tried to take the position of reason. "We need to be certain who the next slayer is. Until we can conclusively rule out your daughter, she remains the most likely candidate."

Giles raised one eyebrow and leaned forward, hands crossed over the grip of his cane. "And what do you propose?"

"Slayer healing cannot be faked one way or the other."

That was the spark that lit Giles' fuse. "Preposterous! If you think I'm going to let you harm my child for the sake—"

"Oh, for the love of God, I'm not suggesting we chop off her hand. A tiny cut. No worse than a scratch she'd get in the schoolyard."

"Absolutely not."

Wesley nodded his head slightly. "Stein was right. She is your blind spot. You can't see clearly where Robin is concerned. Not as respects the decisions a watcher must make."

Giles barked out a bitter laugh. "Travers once claimed that a father's love was useless to the cause. Well, I may have a father's love this time, but you know what? This isn't Travers' Council anymore. His breed of watchers are all dead, and I'm running this show now. We don't exclude the families from the decisions that impact their daughters. And watchers do not overrule parents."

"Stop it!" Robin shrieked.

They both snapped their heads around in reaction to her cry. There she stood, in the middle of the room, the crossbow at her feet, exactly as she had been when they'd turned their backs to her. Except that she was clutching a throwing dagger in one hand as blood dripped down the other.

"Robin!" they both gasped at the same time.

Wesley reached her side first, faster on his feet than Giles, whose limp hindered his pace. Tears were streaming down her face, and Wesley grabbed for her hand to inspect the damage. She'd sliced her palm from thumb to pinky, and it was bleeding nicely, trickling down her fingers and dripping onto the floor. He wrapped her hand with his handkerchief, applying pressure.

Giles arrived just behind him, snatching the knife from her other hand and tossing it aside.

She stuttered slightly as she tried to speak through her tears. "S-stop fighting. I'm n-not the Slayer."

He pulled her into his arms and relieved Wesley of the task of caring for her hand. "Shhh… I'm taking you home now. You're finished here."

He was looking at Wesley as he said the last, making it clear he meant more than just today. He meant she was finished with all of it.

A decision made a bit prematurely and rashly, in Wesley's opinion. She may have dodged the bullet this time, but the odds were still in her favor for the next.

And Giles could not remove him as her watcher on a whim. Oh, no. It had been one of the man's personal crusades in rewriting the bylaws of the Council: that no watcher should be unjustly taken from his slayer without recourse or merit as Travers had done in firing Giles. To be removed from their post, a watcher had to be voted out by a majority after first presenting their side of the story for review.

Giles might come to regret authoring such waterproof directives.

* * *

Stein crossed the last name off his list. Every watcher had checked in. Every potential had been tested, either openly or surreptitiously for those still in the dark. Even the infants had been called in by their "doctors" to be screened for… Well, he couldn't remember the name of the viral outbreak they'd invented, but they'd all tested healthy and normal. Which was a good thing, he supposed, as a baby slayer would be of no use to them, not to mention giving the "terrible twos" a whole new meaning.

But they were still left without a slayer. The last time this had happened was with Buffy Summers. The Council had missed her as a potential. Was it possible that another had slipped past them? The spell the Seers cast seemed to indicate not, but Stein put little faith in magic.

Not like Willow, who was currently entrenched in the Library, poring through volumes for prophecies or spells. Nor Wesley, who was sequestered in his office, phoning up psychics. The legitimate kind, Stein was assured. That Wesley could say it with a straight face immediately after the encore performance of "Hard Headed Woman" was laudable.

The entire Council was growing restless, a fear slowly spreading via hushed water cooler conversations: what if there were no more slayers? Faith might not have been dead even a whole day yet, but they had all been so certain that Robin would be next, and there were so few runners-up in contention for the title. Wild speculation quickly gained credibility as theories were made and accepted without challenge. Buffy was the first slayer to die and come back. Twice. No slayer had been Called after her second death. Nor after her third, more permanent one. They'd all assumed the slayer line flowed through Faith and that her death would bring the next. But what if two slayers simultaneously had somehow unbalanced the forces that drove slayer succession? Perhaps the magic was used up. Perhaps Buffy and Faith were truly the last.

A terrifying concept for watchers. For what was a watcher without a slayer? A librarian. A historian. A museum curator. A clever linguist. A quiz show champion. As good as dead, and the world with them.

But the facts did not yet support this hypothesis. They didn't refute it yet either. There were a number of theories still possible. Stein would seek to disprove them before falling into hysteria.

And Stein had one piece of data the others were lacking. He knew why Robin was not Chosen.

He opened the top drawer of his desk and scrounged around for the scrap of paper he'd written the number on. He may have possessed a brilliant and detail-oriented mind, but his office and living space were utter chaos.

Speaking of chaos…

He found the number and jotted a note on the back while the phone was ringing. He'd loaned out his copy of Yorke's article: "Creation of Universal Concepts in Complex Systems— Chaos and Fractals" on his last visit and needed to remember to get it back.

"Ah, Rayne," Stein readjusted the receiver between his ear and shoulder as his hands dug through his briefcase for his calendar. "I was hoping we could get together again. Tomorrow afternoon maybe? Say three…? Don't forget those articles I loaned you... Well, yes, but aside from the math…" He chuckled as he penned in the appointment. "Yes, 'Does God Play Dice?' was always one of my favorites too, if a tad outdated at this point. Listen, we'll talk more over coffee…. tea, whatever... See you then."

As a firm believer in the idea that chaos could eventually be predicted through the application of science, Stein always enjoyed debating with those holding opposing views. And understanding more about the spell Rayne had arranged would help to shape his theory regarding who might succeed Faith.

* * *

Willow brightened as Wesley joined her at her research table. But he only shook his head, and she deflated back into a sorry lump in her chair. She really liked books, but right now she was ready to shred this particular one into tiny pieces and have a ticker tape parade to celebrate her complete lack of progress. Giles would probably not approve, especially considering that the volume in danger was the Pergamum Codex.

"Nothing?" Wesley confirmed.

"Nada. Well, nada useful, at any rate. It's all riddles and pretty prose. I started at the part where Buffy died the first time: 'And in this time shall come the Anointed, the Master's great warrior. And the Slayer will not know him, will not stop him, and he will lead her into Hell. The Master shall rise, and the Slayer shall die…' yadda, yadda, yadda." Willow slammed the book closed. "Sure, it happened and all, but in hindsight, he only rose 'cause she came, and she only came 'cause the prophecy said he'd rise." She made a disgusted face. "Okay, _that_ sounded more PG in my head."

"Any mention of two slayers? If we can match what's already happened, we might have an idea where to search for references to Faith's successor."

Willow shrugged and pushed the book over to his side of the table. He could read Latin as well as her. "I couldn't find any mention of two. Then again, Faith never really did anything to write home about. There's a mention of a god, which I'm assuming is Glory, and another passage about a plague upon the watchers. I guess a couple thousand years ago, TNT-go-boom could be classified as a plague. But nothing else makes much sense. I'm sure after it happens, we'll all read it and go: 'Ohhh! Duh!' but then again, predicting something after the fact is hardly useful prophecy."

She cocked her head to one side and looked at him more closely. "So aside from pissing off Giles, has your day been a sparkling success like mine?"

He laughed and ran one hand over his stubble. He had neglected to shave that morning. He could be forgiven, considering that he'd probably had more pressing things on his agenda. Only this morning, he'd believed himself to be the watcher to the active slayer. "Well, I sang 'Hard Headed Woman' into a telephone receiver."

"It helps if you pretend it's a microphone," she offered.

"Yes, it also helps if you're not on hold at the time. I'd finished the whole song before I realized Lorne had switched over to take another call. When he came back on the line, I had to 'take it from the top.'"

Willow giggled, and Wesley soon joined her, the pair of them laughing off the tension of the day.

Stein took the chair on Willow's other side. "Nice to see you two can still keep up morale during these uncertain times. The many pairs of eyes looking up to you—" He waved cheerily to an eavesdropper loitering at the end of one of the stacks, and she quickly fled out of the reading room. "—will be encouraged by your good spirits. And maybe if we can quash this whole 'no slayer' rumor, people might actually start focusing on finding her again, whoever she might be."

"I never expected it not to be Robin," Wesley murmured.

Stein propped his feet up on an empty chair. "I'm not so surprised. Let's all be honest with each other. She always came up a bit short. In her training, she lagged behind girls much younger than her. She lacked drive, courage, and most importantly: desire."

"You think a slayer has to _want_ to be Chosen?" Willow believed that Buffy would have had something to say about that.

"I think that in certain situations, it can make a difference."

Wesley shook his head, clearly not agreeing with that sentiment. "You expect me to believe that The Powers That Be would pass over Robin because she didn't want the job, and instead choose a girl who, at best, recently celebrated her ninth birthday? I'm sorry, but The Powers never balked at drafting their champions before."

Willow thought about the girls who lived with their watchers. Anna's parents had died in a car accident more than four years ago. She had been the first potential born after the vampire Joseph's slaughter of all but Robin, and although there were several other girls who were only a few months younger, she was considered next in line after Robin. Anna loved her training and loved the idea of a grand destiny. But she was still so young. Robin had also bubbled with that same enthusiasm at an earlier time, before her mother died, before learning firsthand what being a slayer truly meant.

"Ah, the man of the hour!" Stein removed his feet from the empty chair and pulled it out for the new arrival.

Willow turned around. Giles was limping heavily today, leaning on the cane with each step. He'd been on his feet all day, going nonstop, and he looked as if he might drop. The worry lines around his eyes and across his forehead seemed more pronounced, and the gloomy expression he wore didn't fit a man whose daughter had just been spared a slayer's fate. If anything, he looked like a man who had just learned the lesson "be careful what you wish for."

Wesley sat up straighter, the amusement wiped from his face. They regarded each other for a moment, the tension palpable. "How is Robin?"

Giles sat in the seat Stein offered. "She will heal. Perhaps not at slayer speed, but…"

"I never meant for that to happen."

"I know."

"Apology made and accepted," Stein summarized. "Moving on… What's next?"

Giles fixed Willow with a serious stare. "The Codex?"

"Nada."

Stein was next: "They've all checked in."

Wesley shrugged his shoulders, the same air of failure hanging over him. "I spoke with AI: no visions from Cordelia. All Lorne could foresee was that I could expect some possible car trouble and a minor kitchen mishap. Spike said he'd put in a few discreet inquiries…"

"So what's next?" Stein asked again.

"Sleep," Giles answered frankly. And then his eyes glazed over, a small frown on his lips, as he seemed to turn something over in his mind. "Sleep, perchance to dream. Wesley, see what you can find regarding watchers' dreams after their slayers' passing."

Willow leaned forward, all sympathy. "Are you having dreams?"

He shrugged off her concern. "It may amount to nothing, but I'm willing to explore any possibility at this time. Even…" He met her eyes, the conflict evident in his face. He didn't want to ask. "Willow, if you could speak with…"

"Sure." He didn't need to actually say Ethan's name for her to catch his drift. Stein seemed to perk up a bit, also clear on the subtext of their conversation. She only hoped he wouldn't want to tag along again. The last time she'd taken Stein to visit Ethan, they'd argued chaos theory for an hour, and she'd ended up on the couch, watching Survivor: Antarctica. Not to mention that Giles would probably not approve of her introducing his right hand man to his constant pain in the ass ex-friend.

Stein offered to pick up the slack with whatever Council duties the others needed to let slide while they searched for the next slayer.

Duties divided out for tomorrow, they all adjourned for some much needed rest. Not that they wouldn't each continue with their research at home as well, but at least at home Willow could curl up in bed with her books. And maybe, if Lizzy hadn't picked up an extra night shift at the hospital, she would have someone to keep her warm while she worked.

* * *

"Robin, check it out." Alex slid in next to his sister on the cafeteria bench, reaching in his book bag for his newest acquisition.

She seemed less than interested, glaring at him even. She'd been so moody since the spell to make her the Unchosen One. "Where were you last period?"

"At the Magic Box. Don't worry; no one saw me. I went in through the basement."

"We had a quiz," she informed him coolly, unwrapping her sandwich one-handed, as her left hand was still bandaged from the day before.

"Good thing I skipped then, huh? I haven't done any of the reading. Woulda failed."

"You know, one day Ms. Kitch might call Father while he's actually there."

"Nah. He's never there. She'll only ever get his voicemail." Alex laughed dramatically, an evil movie "Muwahahaha" kind of laugh. "And I know how to erase his messages before he can check them."

"William Alexander, if you studied even half as much as you plot to get away with _not_ studying… maybe the A's and B's Father signs would be real, and you wouldn't have to keep lying all the time." She took a forceful bite of her sandwich.

He rolled his eyes. "Do you want to see what I got or not?" He pulled the hardcover book from his bag and passed it to her beneath the table.

She reluctantly accepted the volume, flipping it over to read the title. "'Beginning Witchcraft'? You stole this from the Magic Box?"

"You didn't complain when I nicked you a cloaking charm." He leaned over and opened the book, paging through to point out some of the more interesting spells. "Look, it's the same book Aunt Willow teaches Intro Magic with at the Council. I thought you could maybe try one out tonight. Something small. Here: 'Static Starlight.' Like a tiny nightlight."

He watched her eyes as she skimmed through the first few chapters. Eyes growing wide with wonder, ghost of a smile at the corners of her mouth, the weight of the past resting lighter on her shoulders, and the future promising more hope than despair; the book had definitely been a brilliant idea.

"You really think I could do this?" she whispered. Her fingers brushed over one particularly detailed illustration.

It was the happiest he'd seen her since Faith had landed in the ICU. And the smile she gave him was the first real smile he'd seen since then. Sometimes he forgot how much she looked like their mother. Until she smiled.

"So what do we got here?" Tommy's voice directly behind them. And wherever Tommy went, Mike and Stu followed. A triumvirate of trouble. 'Cause a school just ain't a school without a few bullies.

"Go away!" Alex snapped. Robin valiantly tried to hide the book beneath her chair, but her attempts at being stealthy only drew attention to the fact that she had something worth finding.

Tommy made a grab for the book, and she ducked under the cafeteria table, escaping to the other side. Unfortunately Mike and Stu had circled around and snatched the volume from her hands as soon as she reemerged.

"Give that back!" she shrieked.

Stu shoved her hard enough to land her on her butt. Tommy joined his two friends and relieved them of the stolen book. He was the ringleader, and as such, always got the best part of the bullying: the taunting.

"Let's see what Tweedledee and Tweedledum are reading today." He snickered when he saw the title. "'Beginning Witchcraft.' Wow. We got ourselves a witch." His two cronies joined in the chuckling.

Alex seethed, fists clenched at his side. But they were in the next grade up and arguably the biggest kids in their class, while Alex was quite possibly the smallest boy in his. He may not have been afraid of these dimwitted bullies, but he also wasn't stupid. And the teachers… well, there weren't enough of them to monitor the entire cafeteria well. He could run and fetch some adult intervention, and pay for it later when there was none, or he could swallow his anger and wait for them to finish their fun and move on.

Tommy leaned over Robin menacingly. "Know what they used to do to witches?"

Robin stood up and faced down her tormentor. "Aunt Anya said they only burned the innocents, 'cause the real witches…" She dropped her voice dramatically. "The _real_ witches would just cast a spell and turn them all to stone or give them smallpox or… or liquefy their brains so they ran out their noses."

The three bullies took an involuntary step back.

While Alex might have admired his sister's pluck at that particular moment, he realized that she'd only made a bad situation worse. She'd rattled them for the briefest of moments, and when they got over it, they'd have to knock her down twice as hard to save face. He wished she could show them what a real witch could do. It would serve them right.

Tommy's expression hardened. "Wanna see me do a magic trick?" He pulled a lighter from his back pocket and flicked the flame beneath the corner of one page. "Disappearing trick."

She lunged for the book, but Mike stepped between and blocked her, holding her back as her arms stretched desperately past him. The paper began to blacken and warp as the tiny flame kissed its edges. The crushing defeat in Robin's eyes was too much for Alex.

He jumped over the table and tackled Tommy. The total surprise on his face was worth any bloody nose he might give Alex later. They played tug of war for the book, which was singed, but thankfully not on fire.

"Give it back," Alex insisted vehemently.

"Make me," Tommy challenged in return.

So Alex did. He hit him.

Tommy went down, crying like a girl.

Alex pressed his advantage, wrenching Tommy's arm back until it snapped and the book dropped.

Tommy screamed.

_Big baby_, Alex thought. _He can sure dish it out, but he can't take it._

Alex snatched the book off the floor and turned around to triumphantly offer Robin his hard won prize.

But her eyes were filling with tears, gazing past him to where Tommy was lying on the ground. "Oh, Alex!"

He turned to give his defeated foe a second glance. The bully sat there, tears running down his cheeks, one arm dangling limply, his forearm bent at completely the wrong angle. His other hand went back and forth between cradling his injured arm and trying to stop the stream of blood currently pouring down into his mouth. He was rocking with the pain. Alex suddenly realized that Tommy wasn't just being a big baby. He was hurt, really hurt. And he, Alex, had done that to him.

Tommy aimed a glare of pure hatred in his direction. "You broke my nose, you bastard!" which sounded more like: "You boke by doze, you bastard!" for obvious reasons. The arm, too, looked broken. Unless, of course, Tommy was secretly a demon whose elbows bent the other direction.

_Now_ they had attracted an audience, including two teachers who were summoned from the other side of the cafeteria.

There was no way Alex could forge his father's signature for this. The principal would require a parent conference. It would all come out into the open: all the lies, the bad grades… the detentions… the skipped classes. Everything.

He ran out of the cafeteria, out of the school, down the street. He ran until his side hurt and his breath caught. It even crossed his mind that it might be better to keep running, to just run away and not have to face his father again after this.

* * *

Giles' secretary tracked him down in L.A. He'd traveled there in hopes of coaxing some information from a source more likely to level with Giles than with Angel Investigations. It wasn't a wild goose chase. Giles had been given a genuine lead, another informant who would be willing to shed some light on the force that attracted vampires and demons to the slayer. Whoever she was, wherever she was Called, she always pulled evil to her like some kind of magnetic north. Perhaps the watchers could somehow tap into that force and find their way to her as well.

He was waiting at the rendezvous for his contact, sipping passable coffee in the corner booth of the Barnes and Noble bookstore café when his pager went off. Intended for emergencies only, he frowned as he read the display.

He flipped open his cell phone and turned it on. Another irritating, if necessary, modern contrivance. Like a bloody electronic leash.

He rang up his secretary. "Dare I hope that they found her?"

No such luck. "Your son's school called. The principal wishes to meet with you."

"Schedule something for tomorrow."

"It won't wait until then." Her voice was crisp, firm, insistent.

Giles sighed and glanced at his watch. "Can you ask Willow to take care of it for me? I have a very important meeting in a few minutes, and I won't be back in Sunnydale until at least this evening."

It couldn't wait, and it required his presence and his alone. He was fuming by the time he'd cancelled on the one good lead they had left and driven all the way back to Sunnydale. But that was nothing compared to the temper he left the school in.

He searched for Alex briefly, but quickly realized that he had no idea where the boy would flee to under the circumstances. It was becoming painfully clear to him that he didn't know his boy at all anymore. He sent Willow and Xander to search instead. Then he called the dispatcher at the station and asked the officers to keep an eye out for his son. They were only too happy to help out Buffy's widower.

Nothing left to do but wait for Alex to either return on his own or be dragged back by someone else. Giles sat at the dining table, sorting through the papers and report cards the principal had sent home with him. The school had written Giles off as an uninvolved father, who didn't seem to care if his child missed class or performed poorly. But now he was beginning to piece together how Alex had intercepted all communication between the school and his father, keeping his father blissfully ignorant and the school grudgingly placated.

Giles accepted part of the blame. He had been busy, overburdened with running the Council, especially preoccupied as of late with Faith's medical condition and Robin's probable calling. Willow had taken the children to school and picked them up more often than their father.

But that in no way excused Alex's behavior. And Giles' anger only escalated as each note and each report card he read only compounded his son's lies.

Robin came home from school at the usual time, delivered by a discouraged Willow, who had made no progress in tracking down the wayward twin.

Giles began to worry, which only raised his temper another notch.

Robin wisely busied herself with homework upstairs in her room.

At half past five, Alex quietly slipped in the front door. He waited in the foyer, eyes downcast, shoulders squared to accept whatever punishment would be laid on them.

Giles rose from his seat at the dining table and pulled the end chair out, setting it down again with an audible thud. "Sit."

Alex meekly obeyed.

"Where have you been?"

"Out."

"Out?" Giles took a deep, calming breath. He gripped the back of Alex's chair tightly. "Out? People are looking for you. Willow. Xander. April. John. Half your mother's department. Watchers who should be looking for the next slayer are instead looking for you."

"I'm sorry."

"While you reflect on how sorry you are, I'm going to go call the search off." He pointed at the chair the boy sat in and ordered firmly, "Don't. Move."

Alone in the kitchen, Giles allowed himself a moment's relief that his son was safe and unharmed. He sagged against the counter, the stress of the last few hours leaving him shaky and weak in the knees. He had tried to push the thought from his mind, but it kept bubbling up: the memory of a runaway Buffy. She'd been gone for the entire summer, and if the last few hours were anything like what Joyce had felt during those months, no wonder she had hated him. He had worried about Buffy in that time too, searched for her, laid awake at night, but that was nothing remotely like the paralyzing fear when it was one's own child who was missing.

But Alex hadn't run away. And Giles could let that fear go.

He made the necessary phone calls and returned to his sullen child. Now that the relief and the fear and the worry had faded, there remained only anger. He sat sideways on the tabletop and crossed his arms, glaring down on his son coolly.

"You've been suspended from school for fighting." No response. "You broke that boy's nose. And his arm."

Alex did look up then, protesting strongly, "I didn't hit him that hard. Honest."

"But you did hit him?"

This Alex couldn't deny, and he bowed his head once more.

"He only did it 'cause they were picking on me," a voice to the side piped up in defense. Robin stood on the bottom step, leaning against the banister and watching them sadly. "They were picking on me, and he was only trying to make them stop."

"Robin, go upstairs."

"But—"

"Go upstairs right now!" Giles repeated himself, a bit louder and with a finger pointing the way. She turned and dashed up the stairs, slamming her bedroom door behind her.

"I don't care why you hit that boy, Alex. It's still inexcusable. Violence is not how we solve our problems."

"Yeah, and all those swords and crossbows and stakes are just for show," Alex muttered.

"Look at me." Giles waited for his son to meet his eyes. "With demons. To save lives. Violence is not an acceptable way to deal with people. Are we clear on the difference?" Giles was surprised he didn't choke on the words. What a hypocrite he was. He had killed with his own hands.

"I'm _sorry_," Alex reiterated, as if merely saying the words was enough.

"I don't think you are. You've been lying to me for months, thwarting your teacher's attempts to contact me, skipping class, neglecting your schoolwork…" Giles reached over and sifted through a stack of papers to find the most recent report card. "Forging my signature to abominable grades that are so far beneath your abilities… I… I have no words." He waved the card in front of Alex's face, and the boy turned his head to avoid looking. "What _is_ this?"

Giles read through the report card one more time, shaking his head. "The only decent grade you earned was for art class. A D in Math. Science. You failed history."

"Yeah, I know. Doomed to repeat it."

Giles banged the table hard. Alex jumped. "You think this is funny? You failed English for God's sake! _English_! You're fluent in Greek, Latin, and Sumerian… I guess I just assumed it was a given that you could at least pass _English_! What's the matter with you?"

"I don't like school," Alex answered feebly.

"Yes, well too bad. We're all required to do things we don't like in this life. And as a watcher—"

"But I don't want to be a watcher!" Alex jumped up off his chair, now face-to-face with Giles, who was still sitting on the edge of the dining table. "Not ever! I don't want to learn Etruscan or Aramaic or even plain old Spanish. Not one more language. I don't want to catalogue artifacts or translate prophecies or memorize demon characteristics. Just 'cause your parents made you be a watcher, doesn't mean I should have to be one too. Why do you think I'd want to be a watcher anyway? So I can have a slayer? So I can let her die the way you…"

The rest of that sentence stretched out into the silence between them.

When the tension became unbearable, Giles broke the silence, his voice much more controlled than the inner turmoil of his emotions. "When you are of an age to make that choice, you shall have it. Until then, I decide what you study and how hard you study it. Until then, you _will_ receive a watcher's education, so you might as well get used to that fact."

He rose and turned his back on his son, setting the report card down carefully on the table. His hands were shaking. "You've been suspended from school for three days. You'll spend that time studying at the Watchers' Council. I've scheduled extra language and history lessons, as well as tutoring in your regular schoolwork. After you return to school, I'll be checking in with your teacher everyday and reviewing your homework every night. You're grounded until further notice. Now go upstairs."

He listened to his son's heavy footfalls as he stomped up the stairs, bedroom door slamming behind him.

Giles sank down into a chair, tossing his glasses onto the table and rubbing one hand over his weary eyes. It had been a long day. And it was barely six o'clock yet.

_So I can let her die the way you…_

Giles erased the memory of his son's words with a stiff drink.

* * *

Robin slipped quietly into her brother's room. He was sitting at his desk, drawing furiously on his sketchpad. All black and red and scary looking, whatever it was would have fit in nicely in one of their father's monster compendiums. Not that she'd ever say so to Alex.

"Hey."

"Hey," he answered back noncommittally.

"You okay?"

He shrugged. "I dunno."

"You shouldn't have hurt Tommy like that." It had been bothering her all afternoon. She couldn't stop thinking about it.

"I know. I didn't mean to." Alex set aside his colored pencils. "I really didn't think I hit him that hard, Robin. Honest. I was just trying to get the book back."

"I know. That's what I meant." She sat on the end of his bed. "You shouldn't have hurt him like that. You shouldn't have been _able_ to. His nose… maybe you coulda broke that with a lucky swing. But you broke his arm, too. Without even trying."

He turned around in his chair, arm looped over the back. "What do you mean?"

Robin scanned his room for something solid, substantial, unbreakable. Her eyes landed on a metal baseball bat standing up in the corner. She fetched it and handed it off to her brother.

"Bend it," she told him.

He balked, trying to pass it back to her. She refused it, pushing it back to him. He looked at her doubtfully, and then took the bat in a firm grip, one hand on each end.

He bent it quite easily.

"How?" he asked, stunned by his success.

The answer seemed obvious to her. How else could her brother have knocked down a boy half again his size? All things being equal, Tommy should have been able to cream Alex without breaking a sweat.

But all things were not equal.

"Alex, you're the Slayer."

Still staring at the baseball bat he'd bent into a large horseshoe, Alex had a simple response, "Cool."

Next: Part 4: When Dead Vampires are Not a Good Thing


	4. When Dead Vampires are Not a Good Thing

ORIGINALLY POSTED: July 18, 2004  
TITLE: Unchosen  
AUTHOR: JK Philips  
RATING: PG  
SUMMARY: Sequel to the Death Brings Clarity saga, now nearly ten years after The Fine Art of Blackmail. Giles wanted to prevent his daughter from inheriting her mother's destiny. He wanted to give his son the choice he never had. He wanted Buffy to live a lifetime beside him. Fate had other plans...  
SPOILERS: Everything up to "The Gift"  
DISCLAIMER: I do not own these characters; they are the property of Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy & Fox. I simply am doing this for fun, and non-profit use.

* * *

Part 4: When Dead Vampires are Not a Good Thing

"But the point of Chaos is that you can't know every variable! That is the very nature of Chaos: that it defies all attempts to define or catalogue it."

"Yeah, but certain variables influence the outcome more than others. Knowing _those_ variables can allow you a reasonable prediction, regardless of whatever other factors remain unaccounted for."

Ethan shook his head vigorously, his now tepid tea forgotten at his elbow. For him the debate was more than academic, it bordered on a personal crusade. He felt like a missionary saving souls. And who would have ever ascribed that particular role to him before? Here was another man who had also devoted his life to Chaos, who revered and studied, lived and breathed it as Ethan did. But rather than surrender to it, revel in its unknowable mysteries, and bask in all its power and glory, this man sought to harness it, to force it into the confines of some neat equation, to essentially bring order to Chaos.

Blasphemy.

And yet somehow appropriate that Janus, the two-faced god, would inspire such polar opposition in his disciples.

"If there _are_ factors still unaccounted for," Ethan reasoned, "then how can you possibly know what effect those factors might have on the outcome?"

"Past experience."

Ethan rolled his eyes. "Pffft… Past experience tells you nothing except what happened in the past. You can't predict the future based on past experience."

Stein leaned forward. Ethan hoped he wouldn't start drawing on the napkins again. Winning an argument by spouting off equations and physics jargon that your opponent couldn't possibly understand could hardly be considered fair play. Train A leaves Edinburgh at 10:30am, going 60 miles an hour. Train B leaves London at 1:00pm, going 40 miles an hour. What time do they meet? On paper, all might seem straightforward. But if Chaos puts a drunken engineer behind the controls, who's to say it doesn't derail in Birmingham?

But Stein refrained from breaking out the magic markers again. He just leaned forward and insisted, "Past experience shows you trends. Gives you the data to decide which factors are influential and which are irrelevant. With the computers we have now, we can input and analyze millions upon millions of pieces of data in mere seconds. We can begin to unravel the complex system of Chaos."

Ethan stopped him before he could wax poetic with an ode to the mighty microprocessor. "I guarantee: you could input the entire history of man into one of those bloody machines, and you still wouldn't have any idea what might happen tomorrow. And that's even if you _had_ all the information in the first place, which you never do."

Stein rapped his knuckles on the table like a judge banging his gavel to regain the floor. The cups rattled. "There _is_ order in chaos, Rayne. The size and scope are too overwhelming for a single man to see, but there is a pattern to be found in any system, no matter how complex. There are rules which govern it, and a map you can follow if you can only decode the legend."

"In the world of science alone, my friend. But magic-"

"Magic is just the name we give to things we don't understand yet." He ticked the list off on his fingers. "Electricity, television, cellular phones, cars, radios… five hundred years ago, they would have all been considered magic. The spells we do now… I don't know why they work, but someday someone will."

Ethan laughed. "God save us from warlocks with chemistry sets!"

"Physics," Stein corrected gently. "I apply physics to the study of chaos."

"You're not studying Chaos; you're trying to change it into something it's not." Ethan tapped the side of his nose conspiratorially. "Past experience suggests that kind of approach will eventually blow up in your face. Who knows, maybe it already has."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"You came to speak with me about the spell I arranged, remember? It was uppermost on your mind before we sidetracked ourselves by discussing our individual perspectives on Chaos. Have you forgotten already?"

"I had a few questions. That's all." Stein leaned back in his chair, his enthusiasm for the debate flagging. Perhaps he realized that Ethan was on to something.

"I'm guessing you expected one result and got something completely different." Ethan crossed his hands neatly on the table and made no attempt to wipe the smug grin from his face. "Enlighten me, oh master of Chaos, how did you overlook even one possible outcome? If the future is so foreseeable, that is, and Order is simply masquerading in Chaos's robes, then how could this spell have baffled you in any way?"

"Oh shove it, Rayne." The man chaffed at even the suggestion of being proved wrong. A fact to file away for later. "You know I never claimed any expertise with magic. This proves nothing, except that you're too quick to gloat."

Ethan considered the accusation. "In retrospect, gloating _has_ often been my downfall. I should really give it up, except… well, it's so damn _fun_. But if I promise to refrain from any 'I told you so's, can we talk about the spell? Has Willow said anything? Did it work? Was the girl passed over?"

"That part of it worked-"

Ethan banged the table hard enough to upset his cold tea. Stein leapt forward to soak the spill up with napkins before it could run into both their laps. Ethan just sat there grinning. The spell had worked. He had carved his initials into the sacred branches of the slayer family tree and attained the very brass ring Ripper had reached for and come short of all these years: he had spared his friend's child the fate of a slayer. A shame he'd never get his due credit, but somehow he didn't think Ripper would thank him for the favor. The money Stein had paid him to arrange it would need to be reward enough.

"Unchosen, just like that," Ethan marveled. "So easy, it's a wonder no one's tried it before." Not so great a wonder, he supposed. The power couldn't be taken, only relinquished. And how many people could casually turn down such power, even power that came at such a high price?

But Stein had another explanation for why it had never been done before. "It didn't just stop _her_ from being Called. I think it stopped _anyone_ from being Called. If that is the case, then that would be why the watchers never used this spell to control the line of slayers, and why I need to find a way to reverse it."

"Pfft!" Ethan swirled his hand in the air in casual dismissal, a giddy smile still on his face as he reflected on his success. "Why should we care who the next slayer is? You only paid me to ensure that _this_ particular girl didn't get the job, and I'd say I delivered nicely. Let the watchers worry about the rest of it. That _is_ their purpose in life after all, isn't it?"

The even, patient expression Stein leveled at Ethan slowly melted the happy grin off his face. In the sudden silence, he could hear someone ordering at the register across the room and the ring of the bell as another customer entered the store. Measuring up the man seated across from him, Ethan realized he'd missed all the warning signs.

"Crap. You're a watcher too, aren't you?"

"You didn't know?"

Ethan rubbed his fingers over his brow, shaking his head in frustration. "I thought you were just a professor at the University with Willow. She never said you were a watcher." He pointed an accusatory finger, as if Stein were somehow responsible for this oversight. "And _you_ demonstrated far too much independent thought for me to ever assume they'd brainwashed you into their club. You're a disciple of Chaos, for Janus' sake!"

Stein laughed. "All those conversations about chaos… magic… _slayers_…?"

"I assumed you got that from Willow." Ethan shook his head. "I'm an idiot."

Stein didn't contradict him. "And when you called to inform me that this girl had approached you about a spell to prevent her from becoming the next slayer… you weren't calling a watcher to offer him a chance to fix the slayer lottery, were you?"

"I thought you'd appreciate a real life experiment in Chaos. You know, a chance to put all our theoretical discussions to the test. I would have never expected a watcher to go along with it. Plus… plus, I knew you could pay me, and the girl couldn't." In all honesty, it was that last reason that had decided him on involving Stein.

Stein continued to laugh. He was enjoying Ethan's discomfort far too much for Ethan's taste. "Well, now that you know I'm a watcher, what's it going to take for you to help me put all this right?"

"There isn't enough gold in the whole bloody world, thank you very much!" Ethan rose, but Stein snatched him by the wrist to prevent him from leaving.

"So I'm a watcher. So what?"

"You don't understand. Ripper connects this to me, and he'll kill me. I know he's made idle threats before, but this time I'm fairly convinced he'd follow through. He's completely lost his sense of humor since his slayer died, and I'm afraid I've used up my share of second chances."

"Ripper?"

Ethan relaxed slightly. "You don't know him? Thank God for small mercies."

"Ripper…? Rupert…? Rupert Giles?"

"Knew I couldn't be that lucky," Ethan groaned, sinking back into his chair. "You do know him then?"

"You could say I'm something like his first officer."

"Yes, that is just my luck: making deals with Ripper's right hand man."

"You're afraid of _Giles_?" This started Stein on a laughing streak to rival Jerry Lewis on Prozac.

"He has hidden depths," Ethan insisted.

Gasping for breath, it took Stein a moment to get the words out, "I assure you: Giles is incapable of killing another human being, not even if he had to."

"Obviously, you don't know him as well as I do. Now if you'll excuse me…" Ethan stood and slid his empty chair in beneath the table with an air of finality. "Ordinarily, I live for helping my fellow man, but in this particular instance, you're on your own. Good luck. I'd start with the 'Reshnelan Chronicles,' maybe skim through 'Khoeland's Dreamlands.' Don't bother with the old hag who cast the spell. She skipped town practically the same day." Ethan ticked through the relevant information in his head and decided that was everything he could offer. "And as payment for pointing you in the right direction, I'll thank you to refrain from mentioning my name to your 'boss' in connection with this little… fiasco. Actually, I'll thank you to refrain from mentioning my name period. No sense planting ideas in his head."

"That's it? You're just leaving?" Loud enough to draw curious stares.

Ethan pondered the question just long enough to lend the illusion that he'd pondered it. "Yes."

Stein chased him to the door. Ethan hoped he'd be spared any impassioned pleas to reconsider. The whole thing was turning into a scene, a scene the eavesdropping coffee shop patrons likely imagined as a breakup scene.

But the man seemed to accept when the battle was hopeless. Not like Giles, who never gave up, not even in the face of insurmountable odds. Maybe there was hope for his successor after all. Stein only asked, as if this was his last chance for an answer, "I just have to know: why does he hate you so much?"

"In general? Or now, in particular?"

"You and Willow are still friends, and he seems okay with that. But he won't even say your name."

Ethan considered lying, toyed with the idea of inventing some tale that would reveal himself as the misunderstood hero of the piece, but he would gain nothing from the effort. And the truth… the truth was something Stein would learn eventually anyway.

"I bring out the worst in him. Or maybe it's just that I've happened to be there when he was _at_ his worst. He's forgiven me more than any other man would have, but this last was too much even for him: I forced him to keep going when he wanted the world to stop."

Stein nodded, although Ethan didn't think he could possibly understand. Understanding the shifting and multifaceted relationship between two sorcerers who had drifted back and forth between friend and enemy like the ebb and flow of the tide for nearly forty years… Well, it was no more possible for an outsider to grasp than it was possible for physics to unlock the mysteries of Chaos.

Unfortunately, Ethan didn't think he'd have the opportunity to teach the professor that last lesson. Stein would apparently need to learn the hard way, and Chaos could be an unforgiving teacher.

Just ask Randall.

* * *

Robin came down for dinner alone and subdued. Her eyes flicked briefly to the wine glass beside her father's plate. Giles rarely drank anything in front of the children, but tonight he'd made an exception, and she'd apparently noticed. He was careful not to drink too much, one drink earlier, another with dinner, just enough to dull the sting of his son's words – _So I can let her die the way you…_ – but not enough to allow him to forget them.

If Robin disapproved, she held her tongue.

"Your brother's not joining us?" he asked.

"He said he's not hungry."

Giles only nodded. Robin didn't appear very hungry either; she pushed her food around endlessly and separated all the onions and mushrooms out to one side.

"Is your hand feeling any better?"

She nodded and reached for a roll, busying herself with buttering it meticulously.

"Is something the matter, Robin? That boy Alex fought with… you said he was bullying you?"

She shrugged, eyes avoiding his. "It's not important."

"I can tell _something_ is weighing on you. If it's your brother... You do know you're not responsible for the trouble he's in? The fight at school was only part of it… the proverbial straw."

"I wasn't thinking about that."

"Oh." Giles had been so certain that her brother was uppermost on her mind.

"I was thinking about the Slayer."

"Oh?" For some reason, he had assumed she wouldn't give it a second thought the moment it became obvious she'd been passed over.

Her forehead crinkled up as she puzzled through whatever it was she was trying to articulate. Her words seemed tentative, a rough draft of her thoughts. "If no one ever finds that… person… what happens to him – I mean her? Do they just get to have a normal life?"

"Maybe. For a while. At the cost of who knows how many innocent lives. But no one can outrun a slayer's life forever, Robin. _It_ Chooses _them_; they don't exactly get to say no. Eventually, evil would find her, be drawn to her: vampires, demons, gods… Even if she didn't live on a hellmouth, her backyard would soon become one, and she'd have to fight or die." A brief pause as Giles considered how few people really got to choose their lives. He had hoped that his children, at least, would have limitless possibilities stretched out before them, any number of paths to walk. Maybe they could still have that.

He smiled soothingly for his daughter. These were things she shouldn't have to worry about. "That's why we're doing everything in our power to identify her: so a watcher can find her before anything else does."

She nodded and asked no more questions of him, but she was still clearly troubled by something. Her emotions had always influenced her appetite, ever since he'd rescued her from the McGregors' burning house at three years old and she'd refused food for a full day. So he could tell by how little she ate just how troubled she must be.

He did notice, however, that she didn't shy away from stockpiling rolls into the folded napkin in her lap. She did it while his back was turned to pour another glass of wine. Apparently, she'd forgotten that the opposite wall had a mirror.

After he'd resumed his seat, he cleared the faint smile from his lips and informed her very seriously, "You needn't sneak food up to your brother. Starving wasn't part of his punishment."

She blushed, caught out.

"Take him up a plate when you go."

She took that as permission to leave, dishing out a plate for Alex and heading for the stairs. She returned a moment later, pausing in the foyer as if mentally debating something with herself. She hesitantly approached her father, standing at his side.

"Father?"

"Hmm?" The fingers of one hand absently twisted the stem of his wine glass.

"I'm sorry I couldn't be the Slayer."

"I'm not." He cupped his hand against her cheek tenderly, and then brushed her soft hair back over her shoulder. He had wanted a daughter to remind him of Buffy, with her blue eyes and bright smile. And his wish had been granted. But it was not in laughter or joy that the resemblance was most striking. It was when Robin carried a sadness beyond her years that Giles could see her mother most clearly.

Robin leaned closer and pressed a light kiss to his cheek before gliding off to deliver her wayward brother's dinner.

How could she think he would ever regret her not becoming the Slayer? No matter who went in her place, however young, however unprepared, better anyone else than her. Even no slayer was better than his daughter. He couldn't imagine ever regretting that she had been spared.

* * *

Willow didn't bother to call ahead. When asking for favors, it was always better to catch Ethan unprepared. If he'd known she was coming, he'd have probably arranged to be elsewhere, and if he'd known why she was coming, he'd have probably managed to remain elsewhere until the crisis passed. "Fair weather friend" wasn't exactly a fair description. After all, the man had come through when Giles had hit rock bottom, even if his methods could be considered unorthodox. But for anything short of rock bottom, Ethan was content to stand back and leave everyone else to play white knight. Which meant she'd have to back him into a corner if she wanted him to lift a finger.

She buzzed his apartment, surprised both by his tone when answering and by the fact he answered at all. Usually he magicked the outside door open, and she scolded him, and then he complained that Giles' repressive tendencies were rubbing off on her. It was their standard hello routine.

This time, he snapped, "You're late!" his irritation evident even through the tinny intercom speaker. And then the lock clicked off before she could respond. She opened the outside door, baffled by her reception. Had Ethan been expecting her?

Apparently not, judging by his expression when he opened his apartment door to her. She sidestepped past him before he could slam it in her face.

"Oh, soddin' hell! What do you want?"

"Nice to see you too." She didn't know why she was so insulted; Ethan had never exactly cared about social graces before. "I was going to ask 'how was your trip?' But I guess I should start with 'Who cast the grouch spell on you?' instead."

That's when she noticed the suitcases leaning against the wall and the boxes stacked on every available surface. "You're leaving again? But you just got back." The betrayal in her voice surprised even her.

"You saying you'll miss me?" He pressed his hand over his heart in mock appreciation of her sentiment. "How touching."

She pulled a worn spellbook from the open box nearest her. Beneath rested half his library collection, the rest stacked in the box beside it. She wandered through his living room, glancing at the contents of several other boxes. She lifted out an erotic Greek statuette of two men enjoying each other's company, a tongue-in-cheek gift she'd brought him back from one of her watcher hunting expeditions. She replaced the chipped statue on the bookshelf where she knew it belonged. All his shelves were empty. The doors to all his closets stood open, only empty hangers hanging from their rods.

She faced him, all the reasons for her visit blown completely out of her head. "You're not just leaving on another trip, are you? You're _leaving_ leaving. For good."

"How very astute of you." He retrieved the statue from the empty bookcase and packed it away again.

"But… but…" To her eternal embarrassment, her vision was blurring as her eyes filled with tears. "You weren't even going to say goodbye?" Her voice rose at the end like a small child.

"What's this?" he asked, wiping one errant tear off her cheek and then inspecting the drop of water clinging to his fingertip. "Tears for the villain?"

"You're not a villain, Ethan, not really."

"Might be wise to hold off on that verdict; the jury's still out."

He left the room, and she sank down onto his sofa. Her mind was spinning, and this was so not the conversation she had been rehearsing in her head on the way over.

He returned with packing tape, sealing each box, watching her out of the corner of his eye. The front door buzzed, and he answered. The cab that he had been waiting for, that he had mistaken her for, had arrived. And all Willow could think to do to delay his departure was to offer him a ride herself.

And all she could think of to say after he'd sent the driver away was: "Why?"

"Why do you even need to ask? You know I don't belong here anymore. You're the only one who'll care if I go."

"Just give him time, Ethan."

"It's been two years. How much time does he need?"

Willow didn't have an answer for that.

Ethan sighed and pushed one of the boxes on the coffee table to the side. He sat down in its place, facing her, hands on his knees. She did her best to avoid his eyes.

"I'm going to be straight with you," she heard the sly grin in his voice as he finished, "and for once you won't even need to get me drunk first."

She giggled a little, and sniffled, and then she did meet his eyes. He looked tired, and he looked old. She never thought of Giles or Ethan as old, but they were both close to sixty now.

"I don't expect to be forgiven for what I did, Willow, and it doesn't bother me nearly as much as you seem to think it should. I sacrificed a friendship to save a friend. It was damn noble of me, even if you _are_ the only one in the whole world who agrees with me, and I think I should go now, before you end up hating me too."

He stood, and she grabbed his wrist to keep him from walking away. "Stay," she asked him simply. "I don't know when I stopped thinking of you as _his_ friend, but I did. Now you're _my_ friend, too. And I want you to stay. You're the only one who can understand the dark Willow part of me. Xander can't. Giles can, but he doesn't want to. He doesn't want to remember me like that, and I don't blame him. But sometimes _I_ need to remember me like that. Please, Ethan, I still need you, even if he doesn't."

She could see the answer in his eyes. The decision had been made long before her arrival, and whatever she said to him was irrelevant. He jerked his hand from her grip and hurried to the opposite side of the room, busying himself with sticking shipping labels on each packed box.

"_Need_ me? Please!" He slapped the labels on roughly, rattling the contents of each box slightly in his haste. "The only thing people could ever possibly _need_ me for is to stir up trouble. If that's what you needed me for, I'd be happy to stay. But no, you want me to piece things together for you, a helpful and productive member of the gang. You forget: people don't like the way I fix things."

He stopped abruptly and turned to point at her. His eyes were hard, whatever softness he'd shown her moments before banished. "Look, let's just call it a stalemate. You've been trying to reform me, and I've been trying to corrupt you, and a decade later neither one of us has made headway. Let's just shake hands across the net and return to our separate sides of the court, shall we?"

"We were never on opposite teams, Ethan. You were never totally evil. You just dabbled sometimes. You're a dabbler."

His mouth opened and closed before any sound came out. Pure indignation was a thing rarely seen on Ethan's face. "I am most certainly not a dabbler."

"A dab of evil, a dab of good. You do dabble." She got up off the couch, things becoming clearer to her now that she'd processed the fact that he was leaving. "And you don't fool me with this mean routine. You're just being nasty so I'll get mad, and you can skip the whole goodbye scene. Sorry, Buckeroo, goodbyes will be exchanged, and I'm gonna cry all over your shirt, and you're gonna have to watch the whole blubbery scene. So you better just get used to it."

"My, my, is this dominatrix persona what attracted your last girlfriend? Please tell me there are whips and leather involved when you speak to her like that."

Willow rolled her eyes. "And you're not going to put me off with rude, pervy comments either. In fact, if you don't stop trying to get out of it, I'm gonna save the big, dramatic, weepy goodbye scene for the airport lobby, where we'll have a whole huge audience to enjoy the show."

"You're insufferable."

"Yeah, and you're gonna miss that about me."

She helped him label the rest of his boxes, an obviously temporary address: a hotel in London. Where he planned to go after that, she didn't know. Tracking him down would be pointless; if he wanted to disappear, she knew she'd never find him again.

She helped him load his suitcases in her car, and then they took their seats, the finality of their next conversation momentarily stealing her speech.

Ethan broke the awkward silence, "Have we arrived at the mawkish goodbye already?"

"No." Willow started the engine. For some reason, sitting in the driver's seat made her feel in control of the conversation suddenly, and she remembered why she'd come to him in the first place. "But there was something I wanted to talk to you about; it's really why I came tonight."

He groaned. "So it's true: there's no such thing as a free ride."

"Well, you don't _have_ to help if you don't want to. It's okay. I mean, if the entire Watcher's Council couldn't figure it out, I don't know why I thought _you_ could. Never mind."

He had to have seen through her transparent attempt at manipulation. He was probably just humoring her when he said, "Go on then, try me." But at least he was willing to listen.

"I don't know if you heard, but Faith finally died."

"Tragic."

Willow rolled her eyes. "It's okay, you don't have to pretend to care."

"No, truly, it _is_ a tragedy. Faith was the sort of slayer I could actually respect: not self-righteous, not a puppet of the Council, not willfully in denial of the darkness she drew her power from. She was human, flawed."

"Not to mention a regular chaos generator."

Ethan smirked, the cat-that-ate-the-canary kind of smirk that no one else could match. "Of course, that was her best quality."

"Here's the catch, though: Robin wasn't Called."

"Really? How perplexing…"

Willow was suddenly wishing they weren't having this conversation in the car where she had to watch the road instead of his face. There was something odd, something suspicious in his voice.

"Yeah," she agreed, glancing over at him and taking mental snapshots to review later. "And even weirder: we haven't found who _was_ Called. None of the girls we've been watching… all dead ends. We've tried spells and prophecies and psychics…" She slammed the brakes a little too hard at the red light. "What else is there? What are we missing?"

Waiting for the light to turn, she could study his face. Willow knew his tells. He gave himself away with the finger brushing across his lip as he thought.

"Why are you asking me? I'm not a watcher. How the bleedin' hell am I supposed to know how to find a slayer?"

"Ethan…" Her tone was warning, scolding. "You know something."

He waved her attention up to the stoplight. "Doesn't get any greener."

She accelerated through. "What do you know, Ethan?"

"_Nothing_!"

"Come on, you didn't sound at all surprised that Robin wasn't Called."

"The real question should be: why were all of _you_ so surprised? Why did you assume you had it all figured out? Something so volatile, so mystical as the Calling of a slayer: a warrior of light who draws her power from the darkness. The very contradiction as much as invites Chaos to have a bit of fun with all your predictions and theories, don't you think? And Faith was the most contradictory of all the slayers. When did she ever do what anyone expected of her?"

"You're saying you think chaos had something to do with it?"

"More than you think."

Willow made the turnoff for the airport, drumming her thumbs against the steering wheel and trying to figure out how to keep Ethan from running off before the conversation ended. He always connected everything to chaos, but this time he might be on to something. Besides, she couldn't afford to be picky about her leads right now. "Would Stein be able to help research the chaos stuff? I mean, whenever you two started talking about it, he seemed to know as much as you."

"He knows, but he doesn't understand."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"It means, little grasshopper, that like a man who has studied fire from a textbook, who has memorized its chemical composition and analyzed its theoretical reactions with theoretical kindling, he has yet to understand that if you touch it, it burns."

She had pulled up to the drop-off curb and was looking at him when he said the last.

"In other words, he is an arrogant know-it-all in dire need of a real world education."

"I thought you liked him."

"Oh, I do." Ethan grinned. "And I especially like watching know-it-all types get cut down to size. Particularly when they're not me." A deep sigh of regret as his eyes drifted up to the lights of the airplanes passing overhead. "But unfortunately, I won't be here to witness him fall off that pedestal. You see, I've finally learned to just do the damage and get out of town."

"Damage?"

"Simply a figure of speech, my dear."

His hand was reaching for the door handle, and somehow Willow didn't think turning on the childproof locks would be enough to stop a chaos sorcerer. Damn Chrysler. There should be some kind of add-on for that.

"Wait! Don't go yet. You haven't really told me what to look for."

"Keep your eye on Stein. That's the only advice I can offer."

He opened the car door, and she grabbed his wrist to stop him leaving. She'd been so focused on her task during the drive, now that the parting moment had arrived, her tears ambushed her.

"We haven't said goodbye yet either." She heard the tremor in her voice, felt the warm flow of tears down her cheeks.

With one swift twist, he slipped from her grip and was holding _her_ by the wrist instead. He bent to place a tender kiss at her pulse. "Let's just leave it at this then: Be seeing you."

* * *

Alex waited until the house was sleeping. Now that he knew he was the Slayer, the Chosen One, the one boy in all the world with the strength and skill to hunt the vampires, now he knew, he could feel the power and strength in his muscles, the heightened awareness, the sharpened agility and reflexes that gangly preteen limbs could never have aspired to.

He had tested his newfound gifts all evening long, like a child might worry at a loose tooth. Rolling pencils off the end of the desk, he had waited until they nearly hit the floor before catching them. Throwing tacks at his wall, he had thrilled at his aim. He had effortlessly snapped a pen in half with one hand (only tried that once; the ink splattered everywhere). He had snatched a fly out of the air with his eyes closed and had held a perfect one-handed handstand until his face turned red. While his father and sister were having dinner, Alex had stayed upstairs, digging out the little wooden sword he'd had as a child and enacting mock battles with imaginary foes.

He had waited restlessly for the house to fall asleep, so he could test his powers for real.

The weapons closet downstairs still had a lock, although Alex and Robin were tall enough to reach by now. Alex wondered if he was taller than his mother now. It had been over two years. But if he tried to sneak down the stairs or go out the front door, his father would surely hear him.

Giles kept a weapons trunk in his bedroom, but that wasn't a possibility either.

So Alex made do with the one wooden stake he kept in his desk drawer, a pocket full of sharpened wooden pencils, and the cross off the wall above his headboard.

He opened the window silently, well practiced at the art of sneaking out. His mom had confided in him that she'd done the same when this had been her room. Out the window, over to the larger branches that reached nearly to the roof, then slither down the tree and drop to the ground. She'd told him this, not to plant ideas in his head (she was smart enough to know he'd already considered the possibility), but to warn him that she was one step ahead of him.

He'd never climbed out his bedroom window while his mother was alive. He'd never have gotten away with it. There was a time his father would have caught him, too. But these days, there were a lot of things his father didn't bother to notice.

One foot on the windowsill, a harsh whisper froze him in place.

"William Alexander!"

Only fair, he supposed, that since he had caught Robin sneaking out, she would catch him doing the same. Rolling his eyes in exasperation, he dropped his foot off the windowsill and faced her. "How'd you know?"

Hands firmly planted on her hips, her tone was scathing. "Because you're just dumb enough to go off patrolling all alone. You know, that's why slayers are always girls: 'cause boys do dumb stuff!"

"I have to do this, Robin, you know I do. I'm the Slayer." The Slayer. It sounded even cooler the more he said it.

She crossed his room in a hurry, continuing their conversation in an even quieter voice. "Father would _freak_. And you're in enough trouble already."

"Then we won't tell him. Mom used to sneak out all the time when she was in high school, before her mom knew about the slaying. Dad doesn't have to know."

"Father said I couldn't patrol until I was fifteen. You know he'd say the same for you."

That was debatable. Somehow Alex didn't think the son would be as difficult to sacrifice as the daughter, considering the fact that his father had chosen her once before.

"I don't care. I have to do this." Alex swung his legs over the windowsill, determined to follow through with his plan. He'd grown up on sacred duties, and one thing he'd learned about them: nothing, not even meddling sisters, could stand in the way of a grand, sacred destiny.

"You're not going by yourself." She pulled a stake from her back pocket and held it in a ready pose. "I'm going with you."

"No, you're not."

"Yes, I am."

"No, you're not." They had inherited their mother's dazzling debating skills.

"Yes, I am." Robin drew herself up to her full height, possibly even standing on her toes a little. "William Alexander, you may have the power of the Slayer, but you don't know how to use it."

He crossed his arms and glared at her. "And you do?"

"I've been training for it for three years. I know more about being the Slayer than you do."

He rolled his eyes. "So what does that make you? My _watcher_?"

What he said with sarcasm, she accepted as a suggestion. "You need a watcher."

Alex could see the resolve in her face and her posture. He knew he wouldn't get out of the house without her. "Fine. But stay out of the way."

He helped Robin climb down. The branches of the tree by his window were spaced further apart than the tree by hers, and she was less skilled at sneaking out in the dead of night anyway. His new slayer powers notwithstanding, he could have been up and down the tree three times by the time he helped her to the bottom branch. She would have made a rotten mountain climber.

They dropped the last few feet to the ground and both held their breath, waiting to see if their father had heard the thud. But his window remained dark and still.

They headed off towards the nearest cemetery, seemingly by mutual agreement, although they hadn't discussed it. They were often able to sync up like that without trying. "Twin-epathy," Uncle Xander had dubbed it. Their gaits matched as they strode down the sidewalk with purpose and false confidence.

In truth, now that he had fled the safety of his house and actually embarked on this vampire hunting mission, Alex found himself with a bit of the jitters. And Robin seemed petrified, the stake shaking in her hand and her path drifting closer and closer to his until she seemed attached to his hip. The slightest noise made them both jump, hearts beating faster and eyes scanning their surroundings for the source.

He made quiet conversation, to distract himself as much as her. "I thought you said there'd be dreams," he asked her. "When Dad thought it'd be you, he said you'd have dreams. I haven't had any slayer dreams."

Thinking about something else seemed to calm her, although her voice trembled slightly as she answered. "Wesley said that when they locked my magic away, they did the spell to you too."

Alex stopped, and she knocked into his shoulder. "I have magic?"

She shrugged. "I dunno. I think they did it just to be safe. But maybe that's why you haven't had any dreams."

He considered the possibility. Just this morning, he'd woken up as a normal boy with this undiscovered slayer power buried inside him, and now maybe there was even more power waiting somewhere inside him too. Alex wondered what kind of boy he'd wake up as tomorrow. "Maybe we should undo the spell. Maybe I should have the dreams. Maybe they're important."

Robin hooked her arm through his and forced him to keep walking. "Or maybe we shouldn't push our luck."

They paused beneath the archway welcoming them into Eternal Peace Cemetery. Trading nervous glances, they gripped their stakes tighter and marched through.

They stopped in front of the first gravestone in the first row. They stood there quietly, heads bowed, hands crossed, hearts pounding in their ears, as if they'd just come to pay their respects. He'd expected vampires to be waiting on the other side of the gate, like caged animals in a zoo. He hadn't planned for the possibility of _no_ vampires in the cemetery. He hadn't the foggiest idea where else to look for them. His mom had always talked about patrolling, making the rounds of the cemeteries; she made it sound like that's where they _lived_.

Robin pointed at the gravestone they were so seriously contemplating. "I don't think she's gonna come up. She died a hundred years ago."

"Oh."

They traded glances.

"So…"

"So…"

They looked around the empty cemetery. The adrenaline rush was rapidly dissipating.

Robin offered out a plan: "Let's look for new graves."

Sounded logical. They wandered through each row, keeping to the path, not stepping on graves, although neither one of them was certain why that was taboo.

They completed their tour, and no vampires. This patrolling thing was turning out to be totally lame. And Alex was beginning to wonder what his parents were really up to all those hours they'd spent "patrolling" and he'd spent at the babysitter's. By the time he was eight, he'd already gotten pretty suspicious about all the "training" they did together.

"Now what?" he asked his sister.

"Well, there are eleven more cemeteries. Let's try the next one."

After the third empty cemetery, he was ready to give up and go home. Of course, as luck would have it, it was on the walk home that they finally spotted a vampire. Crossing the street, a man's arm looped over her shoulder, the sounds of flirtatious laughter echoing in her wake, the woman looked like any other woman on a date. For some reason, Alex had expected vampires to wear long, black leather coats like Uncle Spike and Angel, to scowl and move with a dangerous grace, like black panthers on the hunt.

This vampire twisted one ankle on her high heels and hopped awkwardly for a few steps to recover.

But he was certain she _was_ a vampire. He had felt his stomach knot up in a way he had never experienced before, and yet immediately recognized.

Robin tugged on his sleeve. "I think she's…"

"Yeah, she is." He gave his sister a double take. "How'd _you_ know?"

"I haven't seen anyone wear an outfit like that since Mom dropped us off for our first day of kindergarten."

"So it's dated?"

"Like _carbon_ dated."

Alex smiled. It sounded like something their mother would have said. "Come on, let's follow them."

They followed them as far as the front door of the Bronze. The vampire and her date/victim strolled right in. Alex and Robin, however, were stopped by a very large man who stepped in front of them and blocked the entire doorway.

He chuckled as he requested, "ID."

"We just need to go in for a sec," Alex pleaded.

A little firmer. "ID."

"We're not gonna drink," Robin promised.

The bouncer stooped to put himself eye level. "Look, kids, you gotta be in at least high school to get in whether you're gonna drink or not. And you're what? Ten?"

"Thirteen!" they both chorused indignantly.

"Vamoose!" he shouted, straightening to his full, intimidating height.

Alex, ever the resourceful liar, said, "Those were our parents who just went in. We just hafta ask them something. Please, mister."

The bouncer smelled a lie better than Giles, apparently. "Nice try, kid. Now scram, before I call the police to come help you 'find' your parents." He winked as he said it, the insinuation clear.

"Alex, let's go," Robin tugged on his sleeve, trying to pull him backwards. "Before we get in trouble."

They gave up on getting in the front door and instead walked around to the alleyway behind the club. Hopefully the vampire would lure her date out there to feed, and they could stake her then, but the only patrons who came out the back door were drunk ones who needed a secluded place to vomit.

"It's one in the morning, Alex. I'm tired. And this patrolling thing isn't turning out so great. We should just go home."

"I wanna catch her first. You know she's gonna kill that guy if I don't."

Robin sighed. "They probably left through the other door already."

"I guess." He kicked at an empty beer bottle in frustration. It shattered against the brick wall.

"Even Mom couldn't save everyone," she consoled him.

BANG!

CRASH!

The echo reverberated through the alley like thunder. They both jumped and grabbed for each other, snapping their heads towards the source of the unexpected noise.

"What the…?" Alex was breathing too hard to finish. His heart was pounding a steady drumbeat beneath his sister's response.

"Something fell in the dumpster from…" Robin pointed at the roof just above them. A shadow stepped away from the edge, too fleeting to identify.

She let go of his arms, moving slowly towards the dumpster in question. He followed right behind. They both inched forward in slow motion, pausing between each timid step. It was like one of those awful horror movies, where you were screaming at the characters on screen to just turn around and run away. For God's sake, _don't investigate the mysterious noise_!

But his feet were still moving, as apparently were Robin's. They stopped next to the dumpster's rusty metal side, trading glances. Everything was still, too still. He could almost hear the creepy music that would play behind such a moment. His vivid imagination did nothing to settle his nerves. His mind played a steady stream of full Technicolor movies filled with creatures worse than any he'd studied during his watcher's training, all leaping out of the dumpster to kill them both horribly. Being the Slayer offered little comfort against that scenario.

"You look," Robin told him, nudging him forward. "You're the Slayer." It sounded far less cool when his sister said it, especially under their current circumstances.

"So? That doesn't mean _I_ have to look."

"Yes, it does. Being the Slayer means you have to look first."

"So if you're my Watcher, what do _you_ do? Stand there and _watch_?"

"Pretty much."

"Figures. I think you're just making these rules up as you go along," he grumbled, even as he relented and stretched up on his tiptoes to see over the top. He still wasn't quite tall enough, so Robin knelt beside him with her fingers laced together. Accepting the two-handed boost she offered him, he grabbed the top rim and pulled himself up.

"Ewww! Gross!" he complained.

"What? What'd you see?"

"Nothing yet," his nose still crinkled up in disgust, "but the top of this dumpster is really sticky."

"Oh, for God's sake! What do you _see_?"

"A lot of garbage. Hang on." He swung his legs up and over, standing up on the garbage mound and poking around the mess with his feet. Shifting some newspapers and cardboard boxes to one side, he found what had been dropped off the roof. He jerked back reflexively, his thigh knocking against the dumpster's side.

"What is it?" Robin demanded.

"A body."

The seriousness of that answer silenced them both. Until this exact moment, becoming the Slayer had seemed like a superhero gig to Alex. But now, while standing over a real dead body, his enthusiasm for the position was rapidly waning. Mostly when remembering what it had been like to grow up the son of the Slayer, his memories belonged to the little boy whose mother could do back flips and cartwheels across the training room like he'd only seen in the Olympics, whose mother could win him any toy he wanted at the State Fair (until they banned her from all the game booths), whose mother was faster and stronger and braver than any other boy's mother. Alex had watched her spar against his father, had watched her take him down again and again, had watched her flip through the air like she could fly, had watched her hit the bull's-eye over and over again with crossbows and throwing daggers and her police issue revolver. He had watched her, wanting to move like her, wanting to _be_ her.

Standing over the dead woman's body, surrounded by stinky garbage, Alex wanted to give all his powers back.

Because now he was remembering everything else about his mother, all the moments he had pushed out of his mind, all the times his father had ordered him back to bed when he caught him loitering in the hallway in the middle of the night, stealing glimpses of his mother's bruises and the bloody rags stacked in the bathroom sink. He remembered the way she kissed him goodnight before patrol sometimes, as if saying goodbye. He remembered hard plastic hospital chairs and dozing against his father's shoulder.

He remembered the night his mother didn't come home.

"Are you sure they're dead?" Robin whispered softly. "I mean, maybe they're just hurt, and you know, we should…"

"No, she's dead." Alex didn't bother whispering, feeling a bit less somber than his sister. Whenever the woman at his feet had died, it hadn't been tonight. She'd already been buried and mourned by anyone who had cared for her, rising again to become the very vampire he and his sister had tailed to the Bronze.

Dumped off the roof and not a drop of blood. Even vampires bleed. And after a fall from that height, even a preternaturally strong vampire should bleed at least a little.

A dead vampire would be dust. And an undead vampire wouldn't just lay there at his feet, a brain-dead vegetable with a vacant stare. So pale, even for a vampire. Not a drop of blood, because she didn't have any.

A vampire starved of blood slowly loses higher brain function until eventually going comatose. A vampire drained of blood skips right to the finish. This Alex knew from his watcher's training and from the horror stories his Uncle Spike told him on occasion when describing his first days with the chip. Vampires needed blood to animate the demon inside.

The vampire at Alex's feet was so far gone, fresh blood pumping a foot away couldn't stir her instincts to feed.

He drew the stake from his pocket. Easy to hit the heart when the target wasn't moving. His first dusting as the Slayer, and he could find no satisfaction in it.

"Was she a…?" Robin asked when she saw him pull out the stake.

"Yeah. And now she's dust."

He climbed out of the dumpster and dropped to the ground. Brushing himself off, cursing the vampire dust that clung to everything, he started off towards home, Robin falling in line behind.

He didn't tell his sister that he'd just staked the same vampire they'd followed. He didn't mention that she'd been drained. Drained vampires were not a good thing. The only time he ever remembered hearing anyone talk about finding drained vampires was two years ago.

Two years ago, just before his mother died.

* * *

"He doesn't hate you." Buffy was intently carving something into the weathered and twisted trunk of the tree they were standing beneath. She methodically peeled off strips of thick bark to expose a smoother working surface beneath. Curls of wood shavings gathered at her feet like the mulch his mother had used to line her flowerbed. Buffy shook her head, whether in frustration at him or at the slow yielding of the wood beneath her penknife, he wasn't sure which. "He could never hate you, Giles. He _worships_ you."

"No, you were the one he always worshipped. Now that you're gone, he blames me for it."

"Is that such a surprise? You blame yourself. You beat yourself up about it everyday. Alex just believes what your eyes tell him."

Giles ran his fingers over the rough grooves of bark, traced his eyes up along the dense tangle of branches. This tree was stouter than he remembered their tree being. Old, worn, gray. He knew what that felt like.

Buffy switched the knife to her other hand, flexing cramps out of her fingers. "He's not going to stop blaming you until you stop blaming yourself." She nodded towards her carving. "Whadya think?"

He inspected her work for a moment, stealing a glance to the side to judge how invested she was in his opinion. "It's… it's…" Like when the children had been younger and had eagerly brought him unrecognizable pieces of artwork, he stalled in hopes that she would clue him in on what exactly he was looking at before he insulted her efforts by calling it a dog or an elephant, when clearly it was supposed to be a giraffe.

She rolled her eyes, exasperated. "It's not done yet," her tone allowed the duh! at the end to remain silent. "What do you think of it _so far_?"

"Yes, yes," he nodded as if "so far" made all the difference. Clear as day. "_So far_ it's… it's…" The end of that sentence still remained as murky as ever. Her carving looked like a hatchet job in lines and curves with no discernable pattern. He had an easier time with some of the ancient runic tablets that came his way.

"Well, it's not a little heart with 'B/G Forever' in it, but I think you'll find this handier."

He walked around the girth of the tree, meeting her on the other side. "It's so much bigger than I remember."

"It's not our tree, Giles."

"It's not?"

She pointed upward. "Our tree's up there, growing somewhere in one of those branches." She pointed down to the ground, where bulging roots turned the topsoil bumpy. "I found the seed on the ground over there somewhere."

"This seed?" But when he reached in his pocket, the seed she'd given him in an earlier dream was gone.

"You woke up before you could plant it, so I had to. Gotta plant a seed if you want to grow a tree." She bent close to her project again, intently gouging out round holes at the intersections of all her lines. "The circle of life, Giles. I won't sing you the song, 'cause our son pretty much soured me on it after his two month Lion King marathon when he turned three, but… full circle means things don't always start when you think they do."

She took a few steps back from her carving and tilted her head slightly as she contemplated her work. "Being dead, I have a totally different perspective now. I can see the whole circle, but everyone standing on that circle, they just see a straight line."

She wrapped her fingers around his wrist and guided him closer to the tree. Gently, she placed his hand over her carving. "Giles, I need you to _see_."

The grooves beneath his fingers failed to resolve themselves into any discernable pattern in his mind. "You want me to remember," he whispered.

"Yes."

"I've tried so hard to forget." He attempted to pull his hand back, but she held it firmly in place.

"I know, Giles, but you're failing to see the obvious here. You're coming up on the million dollar question, and I don't know how many more lifelines I can throw you. I need your final answer."

The sky flashed bright, then darkened again, the boom of thunder shaking through his chest. The storm clouds had sneaked up on him. The air cooled more every moment, and he could feel the promise of rain on the wind. He shivered.

"Stay with me," he whispered.

She took his hand and gently urged him down the hill. He squeezed her hand more tightly with each step. One benefit of slayer strength: he couldn't break her bones.

The rain came tentatively at first, advanced scouts mapping the terrain. By the time they'd gone halfway down, the reinforcements had arrived, a steady downpour soaking them both through. Buffy turned her face up and laughed, catching raindrops in her mouth. She pushed him forward, past the point of no return: he could see the mouth of the cave, and he feared morning remained too far away to save him.

The growl of a vampire froze him in place for a fraction of a second before he spun to deflect its blow. Two other growls sounded behind him: two vampires leaving the comfort of the dry cave they'd made their nest to join the fray. He was outnumbered.

"This wasn't what I had in mind, Giles," his slayer scolded.

"You don't understand." He ducked, blocked, adrenaline lending him strength. "You were gone. And this-" One vampire landed a blow to his stomach that bent him in two. A punch from another laid him flat on his back. "-_this_ was the moment I knew it."

He scuttled backward, fingers digging for the stake in his pocket. The moment was pulling him in, drowning out the dream that had led him here. His son, he had to save his son.

The vampire was on him. No time for the stake.

"Incidere!"

Fire arced from his hand. The rain quenched the flames, fate mocking him. He was tired of fighting. And yet his son needed him.

Even without the fire, the vampire still disappeared, the dust unseen and consumed in the downpour, almost as if Giles had simply willed it so.

"Giles!"

He saw Stein then, running full tilt down the hill, a crossbow in one hand. The two remaining vampires saw him too, splitting up. One vampire for each of them. No longer outnumbered.

"Giles, Alex isn't here. He's safe. It was a trick." Stein had no time to reload. He used the crossbow to club his opponent repeatedly, a stake in the other hand, trying to slip past the creature's blocks for a clean strike to the heart.

No time to focus on Stein, Giles had his own vampire to contend with. He struggled to his feet, dodged one advance, and jumped back a few feet to put distance between them. He'd managed to pull the stake from his pocket, and he held it at the ready.

The vampire brandished his own weapon: an iron mace which he twirled in front of him like a baton, mindless of its substantial weight.

They circled each other, Giles keeping out of range, constantly adjusting his grip on his stake, looking for an opening. The vampire did his best to bring every arc of that mace closer to its target.

Then Giles saw it. The cave she'd died in. He'd circled the vampire, and ended up facing the entrance, only a few steps from where he'd found her. Both the cave and the vampire in front of him, and the cave seemed the more menacing of the two.

She was gone.

He couldn't remember why he was fighting so hard. She was gone. His son was safe. Why was he fighting so hard?

The vampire gave him his opening, but he didn't take it. The stake was a leaden weight, and his hand dropped to his side. The vampire slowed his advance, sensing that his prey was no longer running. The stake slipped through his fingers. Later he would claim that the rain had made it too slick to hold.

Giles closed his eyes. _End it._

Nothing happened.

He opened his eyes again, and the vampires were gone. Stein was gone. Just the cave, the rain, and Buffy shaking her head. Her disappointment was a stake to his heart. He bowed his head.

"You gave up."

"I tried to. My adversary didn't oblige me with a quick and merciful death. He shattered my leg first. I suppose that gave Stein enough time to rescue me. I don't really know the rest of the story; by that point, I was unconscious." Giles lifted his eyes to meet hers, gauging the depth of her disillusionment, but needing her to understand. "As I blacked out, I thought I saw you. It was just for a moment. I knew I was trading my life for that moment, but I was with you again, and I would have given anything to stay with you."

"This isn't the memory you've been trying to forget."

"It's one of them."

"Alright, but it's not the one I've been trying to get you to remember." She tipped her head up, water streaming down her face and slicking her hair back. The sky only seemed to be getting darker. "It stormed the day I died too. The electricity went out, and the tree branches kept banging against the upstairs windows. First time I ever remember closing the shutters."

"Buffy, I need to wake up now. I can't do this."

She stretched her hands out, catching the rain in her hand. "How many times does it storm like this in Sunnydale, Giles? Not very often."

"I need to wake up. I'm sorry, but…"

She strode over to him, determined, forceful strides. Winding her arms around his neck, she told him in a voice that brooked no argument, "Remember, Watcher-mine, I never _wanted_ to leave you."

* * *

Wesley had volunteered to tutor Giles' young son during his suspension from school. It would be a welcome distraction from their continuing fruitless search for the next slayer. Besides, sometimes setting aside a problem for a short while can lend a fresh perspective when later returning to it. It also didn't hurt that he was fond of young Alex, that he might even see a bit of himself at that age in the boy, stumbling beneath the weight of his father's expectations and the destiny he had never asked for.

The boy was quieter than Wesley had ever remembered him being. Both children had become more withdrawn since their mother's death, but today Alex's sullen disposition was especially pronounced. His attention drifted. When left to read alone, he fell asleep with his cheek resting on his history textbook.

Wesley allowed the door to slam behind him when he returned, startling the boy awake.

"I'm sorry," Alex mumbled, wiping sleep from his eyes and flipping through the pages of his text to find his rightful place. "I'm just—"

"Tired," Wesley finished for him. "That much is obvious. Did you not sleep well? Did you have dreams?"

A sudden idea popped into his head as he asked the last question. Preoccupied with Robin's potential, he had completely forgotten about Alex's own gifts. The boy had foreseen Travers' death, the fire that had nearly killed his sister, and the destruction of the Council. The same wards that had been set for his sister had also been set for him, after which the dreams had disappeared.

But maybe…

"No, no dreams," Alex insisted, yawning. "Just didn't sleep much."

Wesley pulled up a seat at the table, directly opposite, and quietly broached the subject. "Do you remember the dreams you had as a little boy?"

The child's brow furrowed in puzzlement. "Sometimes I had bad dreams about killer bunnies… But that was just 'cause Aunt Anya used to change the story whenever Robin made her read the 'The Velveteen Rabbit.'" His eyes widened. "There aren't really killer bunnies, are there?"

"No, no, of course not. By dreams, I meant…" Wesley sighed. The boy had only been three years old. How much of those events could he be expected to recall? "Alex, do you remember when you were very young, before your sister came to live with your family?"

"Kinda. I remember Dad used to carry me around while he made breakfast. After Robin came, we always had to sit on the counter."

"Do you remember the dreams you had then, before your sister lived with you?"

Alex closed his eyes, focusing inward as if scanning through old home movies in his mind. Wesley waited him out, giving him all the time he needed to remember whatever details he could.

His eyes popped open with sudden wonderment. "I used to dream about Robin all the time. It was like she already lived with us, but I was the only one who could see her."

"Yes."

"Did I… Was I…" Alex was casting about for the word. He had definitely not had enough sleep the night before. "Psychic?"

Wesley absently chewed on the end of a pen as he thought. "There's no way of telling right now."

"Because Dad and Willow set wards to stop it?"

That caught him off guard. He perked up in his seat, dropping his pen. He grabbed for it again, but only managed to clumsily bounce it back and forth between hands until it tumbled to the ground like a pinball missing both flippers and rolling down the drain. He bent over to retrieve it from where it had fallen beneath the table, taking advantage of the moment to recompose himself before straightening again. He managed to sound nonchalant when he asked, "How did you know about the wards?"

Alex covered his mouth with one hand, but Wesley had already seen the grin and realized the boy was avoiding eye contact to keep from laughing out loud. Wesley simply went on as if nothing had happened, ignoring the warm creep of a blush and trying to remain gravely serious. After all, their difficulty in locating the next slayer was a gravely serious matter.

"Alex, how did you know about the wards?"

"Robin told me. You told her that Dad and Willow set wards on both of us, because she had magic."

"Ahh, of course. I should have remembered that the two of you share everything."

The boy leaned forward eagerly, their current conversation holding his interest far more than the morning's history lecture. "Are you going to take the wards off, so I can have the dreams again?"

"I imagine your father would have misgivings about that plan." Wesley pondered his options. There might be a chance, a small chance, that Alex's dreams could lead them to the next slayer. And yet he remembered Giles' fury at the suggestion of testing his daughter for slayer healing. Suggesting that they remove the wards from his son would likely lead to a similar argument. But maybe… "Maybe they could be removed temporarily. All we would need is one dream, one dream to lead us to the Slayer, and then the wards could be reset."

Wesley rose, motioning Alex back when he moved to follow. "Wait here. I need to talk to your father first." He tapped the book that still lay open on the desk. "Chapter four. And try not to fall asleep this time."

He set off down the hall, on a mission, rehearsing the conversation in his head. He might have even mumbled some of the dialogue out loud. Completely absorbed in his task and oblivious to his surroundings, he almost knocked Willow off her feet as he turned the corner.

He grabbed her by the arm to steady her balance, apologizing profusely. "Aren't you usually teaching at the University this time of day?"

"I got a sub. Something came up. We need to talk, emergency Council meeting stuff."

He nodded towards the end of the hall and Giles' office. "I was just on my way to talk to him about something else."

"No, no, no!" Willow grabbed him by the arm and hauled him off in the opposite direction. "Giles can not know about this. We're keeping him out of the loopy on this one."

"What is it?"

Willow stopped and glanced both directions as if checking for spies. She lowered her voice to a conspiratorial whisper, which seemed a little silly considering they were the only two people in the hallway. "You know my new recruit, Ahmed? Last night was supposed to be his first dusting. You know, carefully _controlled_ conditions, captured vamp, plenty of backup?"

"Dear Lord, no one was hurt, were they?"

"No, no, everyone's fine." She waved off his concern impatiently. "But when they got there, someone had beaten them to the vamp."

"It had already been dusted? Are you sure it didn't just escape?"

"Not dusted, Wesley." She double-checked the hallway again. Obviously whatever she was about to reveal was top secret. "_Drained_."

"No."

"Yes. Drained!"

Her volume spiked at the end, squeaking with a touch of fear, and now Wesley took over the role of paranoid one, urgently shushing her and glancing down both sides of the hallway to see if anyone had overheard her outburst. "I can certainly see why you want to keep this from Giles. But… but…" He couldn't wrap his mind around it. "Are you absolutely sure? It's been more than two years. Why would it return?"

Willow shrugged, head shaking. "All I know is that when they opened the cage… Surprise! The vamp's been sucked dry. And unless you can think of another demon with vampire blood on the dinner menu and a habit for cleaning his plate… Well, heee's baaack."

"The last slayer who faced him, died."

"Yeah, Buffy," she added softly.

"This time, there is no slayer."

"At least we're not starting out from square one this time. I mean we already did the research, we know what we're facing. All we need now is to figure out—"

"How to kill it," he finished glumly. "What makes you think we'll have any more luck the second time?"

"Because we _have_ to, Wesley. We just have to."

Next: Part 5: Slayer Dreams


	5. Slayer Dreams

ORIGINALLY POSTED: April 8, 2008  
TITLE: Unchosen  
AUTHOR: JK Philips  
RATING: PG  
SUMMARY: Sequel to the Death Brings Clarity saga, now nearly ten years after The Fine Art of Blackmail. Giles wanted to prevent his daughter from inheriting her mother's destiny. He wanted to give his son the choice he never had. He wanted Buffy to live a lifetime beside him. Fate had other plans...  
SPOILERS: Everything up to "The Gift"  
DISCLAIMER: I do not own these characters; they are the property of Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy & Fox. I simply am doing this for fun, and non-profit use.

* * *

It's been a while since the last part, so here's a synopsis of Unchosen thus far...

Previously in Unchosen… Faith is dying, only her life support preventing Robin from being Called as the next slayer. Alex has been weaving a web of lies to cloak his failing grades and school truancies. And Giles, absorbed in the work of rebuilding the Council of Watchers and still grieving for Buffy, is blind to Robin's doubts and Alex's delinquency. Robin, desperate to avoid becoming the slayer, asks Ethan Rayne for a spell to prevent it from happening. He delivers, removing the wards to her magic in the process. When Faith dies, apparently no slayer follows. After Alex gets into a fight at school, Giles learns of his poor grades and truancies, but Alex doesn't want to be a watcher. It's Robin who figures out that Alex has become the Slayer in her place. Ethan skips town before his role is discovered, warning Willow to watch out for Giles' second hand man, Stein. Alex tries out his new slayer skills, with Robin following as his watcher, and stakes a drained vampire. Willow has also discovered drained vampires, a sure sign that whatever killed Buffy is back. Through it all, Buffy has been visiting Giles in his dreams. She tells him a story of a tree that is first strong and tall, then sapling, then seed, then waiting in the branches of its mighty parent. She needs him to remember and to understand, so he will be prepared for what awaits…

* * *

Part 5: Slayer Dreams

Wesley's forgetfulness could be forgiven for three reasons: One, the disturbing meeting he had just finished concerning drained vampires completely monopolized his focus. Two, Giles' insistence that Robin was "finished" with her training would seem to require some kind of discussion before they could resume their schedule. And three, Robin's own distaste for slayer training seemed to suggest she would take advantage of any excuse to skip out.

So it was with mild surprise that he accepted his secretary's reminder that he was late for training and his slayer was waiting for him in their practice room.

"Robin?"

She didn't face him, but he noticed their practice equipment already laid out and waiting.

"Has your father given permission for you to resume training?"

She shrugged. "I didn't ask. He's busy." She strapped on the protective vest and padding.

"Is your hand well enough?" He noticed the bandage and knew that without slayer healing, the slice she'd made across her palm would still be sore and too easily reopened.

"I'll be careful." She tossed him a wooden sword and chose one for herself, forgoing the quarterstaff lessons they'd been working on. "I'll just use the one hand."

When he made no move to begin their lesson, she finally met his eyes, and he could see that she was terrified. "Unless… Well, maybe since I'm obviously not gonna be the Slayer… maybe you're not gonna be my watcher anymore."

He held her eyes and replied with conviction, "You still have the potential, and I am still your watcher." He strapped on his own protective gear as if to punctuate that statement.

He didn't question where her sudden desire for training was coming from. If he were completely honest with himself, his mind was still on the drained vampire, so lifeless on the med table, not even a full blood transfusion enough to wake it from its comatose state.

Distracted as he was, Robin managed to disarm him in barely three moves. His eyes widened in surprise. Obviously, she had been paying more attention in their past training than he had given her credit. And as his wooden practice sword clattered to the ground, Robin smiled, really smiled from ear to ear, arms raised in victory. Wesley shook his head in astonishment, and shook off his preoccupation with the drained vampire, bringing all of his attention to the girl in front of him. He retrieved his sword and came at her, testing her balance, her reflexes, her defenses, all while deflecting her own advancing blows.

He grinned back at her, praising each success. She had a fire that had been lacking since her mother's death. No longer approaching their training as a dreaded burden, she had turned their sparring into a game, the terrible weight of the past lifted from her shoulders. She moved lightly on her feet now, almost as if dancing. Concentration furrowed her brow, her teeth worried at her lower lip, and she met each of his advances with fierce determination. A grin would split that intense focus each time she scored a hit, and for once the smile lit her eyes as well.

In the end, though, she was still just a child of thirteen, lacking slayer stamina and adult lung capacity. The lines of sweat down her face and the hitch in her breath told him clearly that she had reached her limit. He raised one hand to signal the end of the lesson, and with the other he grabbed for her practice sword. She held firm.

"Robin?"

And now the same uncertainty from before was back, her eyes darting away as if hiding some secret from his gaze.

He tugged on the sword, and she tugged back. "Robin?"

"Umm…" She was fidgeting as if ants were crawling up and down her legs. She flipped her blond hair over her shoulder. "I thought maybe… if maybe I could… I mean, I haven't really been trying, and well… I should get more practice, and so maybe I could take some practice stuff home, and maybe Alex and I could practice in the basement, 'cause he's supposed to be training to be a watcher and maybe it would help both of us if we did some extra practice together." Her eyes flashed up, hopeful, beseeching. "_Please?_"

He let go of the wooden sword, scratched the back of his neck as he thought, and finally shook his head no. "I really don't think it would be a good idea, Robin. Alex doesn't have any idea how to train you, and it could set you back in your lessons. It's much harder to unlearn bad habits than to avoid them in the first place."

"Pleeease," she begged. "Please, please, please? We won't train, just practice. All the drills you've already showed me, and then I'll still come here everyday and we'll train together, and you'll see… Really, it will help. It will. I promise, just drills, no sparring. You'll see, no bad habits, I promise."

She was bouncing on her feet, those wide puppy dog eyes pleading with him, every ounce of girly wiles she possessed focused on breaking his resolve.

He rolled his eyes to the ceiling and said it between clenched teeth, "Fine." She claimed him in a crushing hug, and he laughed darkly as he returned it. This would be why Giles had allowed his slayer a longer leash than the old Council traditions demanded and gotten himself fired.

He pushed her back to arms length and tipped her chin up to meet his gaze. "On a probationary basis. We'll see how this week goes. And Alex will attend one of your training sessions, so I know he is doing the drills properly too."

A flash of fear in her eyes, but she had buried her head against his chest once more before he could read anything else in the expression. "Okay."

Wesley wrapped his arms around his potential slayer and sighed. Not nearly as cut and dried as his initial watcher's training led him to believe all those years ago.

* * *

Dinner at Giles' house: the inner circle of the Council, plus the twins. An awkward silence fell between the forced spurts of small talk. Willow knew they each had their reasons for the uncomfortable silence. Giles was worrying on the spell they planned to do, what it might mean for Alex to lift the magic wards and allow him to dream. That he agreed at all only showed how troubled he was that they had yet to find the next slayer. He probably assumed the rest were quieted by the same concerns.

Willow knew better. She, Wesley, and Stein had their own secret they were keeping from Giles, something even more troubling than not finding the next slayer. One drained vampire, locked up in the Council computer labs, somewhere Giles would be unlikely to stumble onto it. They traded glances over Giles' head, their shared secret a heavy weight in the air.

The twins… well, Willow figured they were still quiet beneath the shadow of Alex's suspension and lousy grades. Walking on eggshells to avoid stirring their father's anger.

Giles made another bid at easing the tension. "So, Willow, Lizzy couldn't join us again, I see."

"She's in surgery." Willow rolled her eyes at Giles' slight smirk. "Don't you dare give Xander anymore ammunition. He's already got his boys calling her the Phantom of the Opera-ting room."

They shared a wry chuckle at that, and then the silence was back. Plates nearly empty, they couldn't put off the true purpose of the evening much longer.

The children tried next, perhaps eager to escape the oppressive gloom. "Can we go?" in unison, and then separately, "—homework." "—test on Monday."

Giles dismissed Robin, but motioned Alex to his side. The boy's head was bowed, perhaps fearing another tongue-lashing. Giles reached for his shoulder to offer comfort, but instantly pulled back when his son only flinched at his touch.

"Alex," Giles' voice was severe, no wonder the poor boy was braced for more recriminations. "Today in your lessons with Wesley—"

"I didn't mean to fall asleep," Alex interrupted, the words tumbling out. "I was just so tired, and history's so boring, and I'm sorry, I didn't mean—"

"Shhh, enough of that." Giles cupped his son's chin and forced their eyes to meet. "This has nothing to do with school. This is about the dreams you used to have. Remember talking with Wesley about the dreams?"

Alex relaxed slightly, as if he'd been holding his breath. "I haven't had them since you and Willow set the wards."

This time it was Giles who flinched, then spared a glare for Wesley as he said the next, "I would have told you when you were a bit older. I never meant for you and Robin to find out that way."

Wesley, to his credit, looked suitably shamefaced for spilling the beans. "Well, what's done is done. Point is it's out in the open now. And Alex's dreams might point the way to the Slayer."

The boy's eyes lit up, promise of an adventure. "You're going to take the wards off? I'll have magic?"

Giles frowned. "We're not certain you have magic. We know Robin did. You may just have dreams… or not. You may have magic, or it may come to you when you're a bit older. But yes, we'll take the wards off for now, and with any luck, you might have a dream that will help us find the Slayer."

Alex's gaze dropped to the floor at that last hopeful statement from his father. His murmured, "Okay," was barely audible.

Willow wrapped one arm around the child, offering him the comfort Giles failed to. "It'll be okay, Alex. Totally safe. Your dad and I will be looking out for you the whole time. If the dreams get bad, we'll wake you up. And we can always redo the wards in a pinch. Okay?" The boy leaned into her touch, nodding against her shoulder. She gave Giles an encouraging smile, but he just turned away and headed into the living room to set up the spell.

Too much space in the house. Between Giles and his children. Between them and the rest of the world. Even the boy Willow held in her arms remained at a slight distance to her, holding some secret behind his eyes and between his words. Space and silence surrounded everyone who walked into this house. Like the ghost of Buffy stood between her family and anyone who tried to reach out to them. No, that wasn't fair. Willow knew that wasn't who Buffy was, wasn't what she would have wanted. And yet, the space and the silence remained. And Willow was failing horribly in her promise to Buffy.

Willow and Giles performed the spell. Alex obediently followed their instructions. Stein watched, always trying to expand his knowledge of magic, always trying to find the scientific framework that might explain it. Wesley sat near the bottom of the staircase beside a curious Robin, arm wrapped around her shoulders to hold her back out of sight and keep her out of trouble. She curled against his side automatically. His head rested against the crown of hers almost accidentally, as he tipped his head to get a better view of the casting. He whispered explanations and translated the incantations for her. When the spell finished, he lifted her to her feet and sent her upstairs to her room before she could be seen.

Wesley and Stein returned to Council Headquarters, sharing a significant glance with Willow as they passed. A drained vampire awaited them. Let Giles think they were researching slayer succession. He had enough to worry about. Willow and Giles led Alex upstairs to his room, intending to stand vigil as he slept, hoping for a clue in a dream. Though they never said it out loud, they all knew they were grasping at straws.

* * *

The Council Headquarters were empty as a tomb. Every room, every corridor, abandoned. Alex shivered. No matter the time of day or night, there was always life in these buildings. Late night research and conversation, students cramming for tests, patrols coming or going. But now the books stood open and forgotten where they lay. It felt like the apocalypse had come and gone and he was the sole survivor.

"Hello?" His voice echoed back to him. He glanced at the tables of open books as he passed. Nothing but blank pages, empty as the building around him.

The lights flickered for a moment, and then a flash of lightening lit the skylight above him, almost as bright as daylight.

He caught movement at the edge of his vision in that brilliant flash, like a strobe effect: there one moment, gone the next. Fearless, reckless, inquisitive, headstrong, he'd been accused of all these before, and so without hesitation he set off in the direction of that movement.

"Hello?"

He passed between the stacks, the tall shelves of books like a long hallway. It didn't escape his notice that the spines were all blank. No titles. No authors.

The stacks opened into his kitchen at home, as normal as if he'd always wandered through the Council Library on the way down for breakfast. He heard soft humming to his left, behind the open fridge door.

"Mom?" Softer, hopeful: "Mommy?"

The door closed with a bang, and it was Faith's grin waiting behind it. Faith: dark hair, dark eyes, black top, black pants, eyes rimmed in black, her red lips the only color. "Hey, short stuff, got a project for you." She dumped an armful of veggies on the center island and handed him a carving knife. She busied herself paging through a cookbook, every page blank, until she found just the right blank page. "Yep, here it is." A jerk of the chin in the direction of the blade she'd given him. "Whatcha waiting for?"

"Won't work for me. I'm left-handed." He tipped the carving knife back and forth experimentally. The balance seemed off. And the grip of the handle… "Doesn't fit right," he elaborated.

Rolling her eyes, Faith bounced over to stand behind him, framing his body with her own. Placing her hand over his, she worked the knife through him, leading him through the motions of chopping carrots. Slow. Methodical. Thunk. Thunk. The blade rose and fell against the cutting board in a steady rhythm beneath his fingers. Thunk. Thunk. He felt like a puppet on strings.

"Might not fit perfect. Only borrowed, after all." Thunk. Thunk. The breath of her words was warm against his neck. "But here's a little secret for you, kiddo—" Thunk. Thunk. "—it's _all_ borrowed power in the end."

Faith slipped an apron over her head, with ruffles along the edges and a perky sunflower on the chest. As she tied the strings behind her, the world suddenly went black and white and grey, all the color faded away. And strangely, Faith's pitch-black hair was suddenly bouncing in perfect ringlets. His father walked in: suit, tie, vest, hair smoothed back slick with gel, and smoking a long pipe. He held the pipe to one side as he gave Faith a perfunctory peck on the cheek. He blew a few smoke rings as he eyed Alex up and down. He held out an empty cup, and Faith neatly filled it with coffee for him, returning the routine peck on the cheek.

Giles crossed his arms over his chest, still lazily puffing on the pipe, and looked down his nose at Alex. "You shouldn't be here, son, this is women's work."

Faith was pulling things from cupboards and cabinets and drawers: stew pots, spatulas, jumper cables, a trowel. She kept double-checking the blank cookbook.

"Don't blame him. Robin's off playing _badminton_." She said the last in a stage whisper, sharing a significant glance with Giles, both nodding knowingly.

Giles slipped a newspaper under his armpit and raised his coffee mug in farewell. "Well, I'm off to do terribly important things. I'm expecting a call on my red phone today. And Spike promised to teach me how to ski."

He leaned close and whispered it in Alex's ear as he passed, scolding, "Really, son, you could at least read the instructions."

"But, Dad, the book is _blank_!"

Another shared look between his father and Faith, this time long-suffering. "Obstinate, just like his mother. He'll die like his mother, too." Giles sighed, as if he'd reached the end of his patience. Addressing Faith, "I can only blame myself really. I always wished he were a girl." And then to Alex, grudgingly, "Get it out of your system if you must. Don't come crying to me when your classmates tease." And with that, he slipped out the back door.

"Eggs!" Faith cried, panicked. "Nearly forgot the eggs!" She whipped off the apron, and color flooded back into the world, like Dorothy opening her eyes to Oz. She grabbed him roughly by the elbow and steered him to the back door, shoving him onto the back porch. "Hurry-up, short stuff, and find me some eggs! Purple eggs, if you can."

The door slammed behind him, and he was left alone in the pouring rain. "Where am I gonna find purple eggs?" he mumbled to himself, as his eyes scanned the backyard for shelter from the rain.

"C'mere," a familiar voice called. Spike poked his head out from inside Leaky's old doghouse and motioned him over.

Alex hurried towards that slight refuge, following his vampire uncle through the small dog door, and finding himself immediately dry as if he'd never gotten wet.

He'd played in Leaky's doghouse often enough when he was younger, but he didn't remember it being quite so big on the inside. Or carpeted. With canvas sides. And a wood cherry ceiling. In fact, the inside of Leaky's kennel was looking suspiciously like the underside of Aunt Anya's massive dining table, with blankets draped over to transform it into a fort.

Spike sat cross-legged, leather jacket pooled around his legs, face vamped-out, eyes yellow and glittering. "He's coming." His uncle's voice trembled. Fear that Alex had never heard in that voice before. Fear in those yellow eyes that were never meant to hold fear. A monster's face that was meant to make others tremble and quake. And yet, Alex had never feared his uncle, no matter which face he showed him. He liked to think that made him brave. Spike said it made him foolish. Even Dawn feared him a little. Redemption was not guaranteed, was a choice he made everyday, and anyone with a lick of sense should still fear his fangs. That's what his uncle told him. Alex always suspected the warning was aimed more for Angel, whose soul was more at risk than Spike's promise of morality could be.

But now, Alex saw what terror could look like on a vampire's face.

"He's coming," Spike repeated, inching backwards.

"Who?"

A shadow fell across the canvas sides of the fort. Spike grabbed his arm, grip bruising. His reply was a harsh exhale, no sound, only breath, "_Him_!"

And then an arm plunged through the flap of fabric at the entrance. Alex shrieked as long fingers locked around his ankle. He felt less than brave. Spike cowered behind him, pleading, "Don't let him take me."

The hand was dragging him from his shelter by one leg. He clung to his uncle, but Spike wasn't strong enough.

He was slipping out into the rain, kicking his legs, desperate to wrench himself free…

Alex bolted upright in his bed, panting and trembling. In the darkness, the figure beside him was only shadow, but the soothing fingers through his hair were feminine. Willow, then.

Gentle hands urged him to lie back, and the bed dipped as she sat beside him. Her touch was a lullaby across his skin, a familiar rhythm of circles and spirals that echoed his oldest memories of comfort. Ghosting across his forehead and cheeks, smoothing along his chest, dancing up and down his arms. A melody made with a mother's hands. In the darkness, she could still be taken for Willow, except for her touch.

"Mom?" He choked on the word as the tears came, stinging his eyes, burning his chest. Hot, fat tears rolled down the sides of his face, wetting his pillow.

Her lips brushed across his brow, and then pressed a tender kiss over each closed eye. The bed shifted as she lay beside him. He curled into her embrace and felt like he was three years old again, an only child, chasing away his nightmares in his parents' bed. Sobs shook his body, and she hugged him tighter, rocked him in her strong slayer arms.

"Shhh, little Rabbit." Barely a whisper, but it was _her_ voice, his mother's voice, and that made him cry all the harder with the absolute certainty that he was still dreaming and that she would be gone when he woke.

"What are you doing here, baby?" She rubbed soothing circles over his back. "You shouldn't be having slayer dreams."

"Dad— and— Willow— did a— spell so— I could." He forced the words out between each hiccupping sob.

"Figures. Last chance to get into his dreams, and he pulls an all-nighter. If I didn't know better, I'd suspect he's avoiding me."

She pushed him back slightly, cupping his face in her hands and resting her forehead against his. "Look at me, Alex. Breathe. Again. Slowly. You're getting yourself so worked up; you're gonna wake yourself up. But first, I need to give you a message. You need to tell your father. Wolfram and Hart have the book. Look for—"

Alex bolted upright in his bed, panting and trembling. The lamp on his nightstand snapped on, his father sitting in a chair beside him, leaning forward with a look of concern. His bedroom door opened a moment later, and he could see Willow's silhouette, backlit by the hallway light.

"Alex?" His father reached one tentative hand towards him.

Everything blurred with tears. He fought them back, tried to blink them away. A few escaped down one cheek. He fixed his gaze on one of the planets on his constellation bedspread. Mars maybe. "I saw Mom."

His father's hand closed around his own, fingers squeezing tight as if to transfer strength across that grip. "Willow, help me reset the wards."

They asked questions as they prepared the spell, and Alex hated lying to them, but he wasn't ready to tell them he was the Slayer yet. He wasn't ready to talk about his mother yet either, so he failed to pass along her message, if it had indeed been a real message. Thankfully, they didn't press him too hard for answers and accepted that his dream had been a dead end in the slayer search. Obviously, dreaming of his mother had rattled him, and that softened the edge of their interrogation.

He should probably protest the wards being reset, any possible magic being locked away, but that was a sacrifice he'd willingly make to avoid any more dreams.

By the time Willow and Giles finished the spell, Alex had calmed himself. Even so, as his father bid him good night, one hand seized Giles' pant leg in a panicked grip.

"Stay. Please." His cheeks burned red with embarrassment as he asked it. He felt like a baby, but he couldn't help it.

"Of course," his father replied softly, and stretched out on the bed beside him. He left the lamp on, although the room dimmed slightly as Willow closed the door on the hallway light as she left. Giles grabbed the first book his fingers touched from the stack on the nightstand and opened to the page with the folded back corner. No lecture on bookmarks and proper book care and not cracking the bindings. Not tonight. Tonight Alex fell asleep listening to his father's voice continue a tale about robots, spaceships, and other worlds.

* * *

Ahmed shuddered every time he dared a glance in the direction of the drained vampire. Willow handed him a cup of tea and smiled sympathetically. Wesley and Stein were too busy strapping their new addition to a med table and hooking up equipment to notice the new watcher's nervousness.

"If a transfusion of human blood won't do it, maybe vampire blood?" Stein suggested thoughtfully.

"Considering that the vampires we have on hand are fresh out…" Wesley sighed. "Bloody hell. Maybe Angel… or Spike?" He touched a small cross to the body on the table, and her arm sizzled and smoked. Proof that the thing was indeed a vampire, and not just a dead, cold body. Yet, no reaction to the burn of the cross. At least the one from last night was frozen in vamp face. This one could have been mistaken for a human victim, if Ahmed hadn't seen what drained it firsthand.

"What did he look like?" Willow asked gently, distracting Ahmed from the lifeless vampire a few feet away.

"I thought… well, I saw her go down. I thought he killed her, thought _he_ was the vampire. But when he got closer… His eyes changed. This, this weird purple color. And his voice. His lips weren't moving, but I could hear him. Like he was in my head."

"What did he say?" Wesley's attention now caught, he wheeled a chair to the other side of Ahmed. Stein was still absorbed in comparing readouts on the drained vampire they'd found last night versus the one Ahmed had found tonight.

"He asked me where the Slayer lived. Said… um…" He squeezed his eyes shut in concentration. "'The Slayer will bleed for what she has taken.' Then, umm… Well, I fired my crossbow, but when the bolt hit him, he just melted away like fog."

"Yeah, he does that," Willow groused.

Ahmed took a long sip of tea, hands closed around the cup as if to draw comfort from the heat as much as the taste. "My first two chances at staking a vamp, and both times that demon drains them first. Maybe I shouldn't have a first dusting. Controlled conditions or… or otherwise."

Willow slapped the backside of his head hard enough that he flinched. "That's for patrolling by yourself."

"Believe me, I've learned my lesson."

Wesley stood and started pacing the room, weaving back and forth between the neat aisles of computer terminals, idly spinning chairs as he passed. "He's looking for the Slayer. Can't be Buffy. She never even scored a hit on him. And this sounds like a demon looking for retribution."

Stein joined the conversation. "This demon knows who the Slayer is."

"Possibly," Wesley agreed.

"Well, Alex's dream was a dead-end in that department." Willow deflated as she remembered the reawakened grief she'd witnessed in father and son. "Better not mention it again. It was… well… Not. Good."

Wesley raised his eyebrows in curiosity.

"Buffy."

"Ah. I'm sorry. I should have never—"

"No, no, Wes, it was a good idea. In theory. The application just went kinda kablooie."

"Anyway," Stein changed the subject, rather short on patience for anything resembling actual human _feelings_. "It seems that our purple-eyed demon is quite possibly looking for the Slayer, so we had better find her first."

"Oh, Okay," Willow said, brightly. "In that case, we'll all stop slacking off and start looking then, shall we?"

Wesley stepped between them. "We're all tired, but sniping at each other will accomplish nothing."

"Sorry," Willow grumbled.

"Maybe I should go," Ahmed offered, like the neighbor who found himself witness to family squabbles in the middle of dropping by for tea.

"We should all go," Stein seconded. "Get some sleep."

No one argued. They locked up the computer lab, making sure the large sign declaring "Temporarily closed for upgrades" blocked any view inside.

* * *

Alex spent the day itching for a fight. Being that it was a Saturday, not to mention that he was grounded, he didn't have much to distract him as he waited out the hours 'til sunset. He stole some stakes and holy water from the weapons closet downstairs, tall enough now to reach the lock without a chair. The swords and crossbows seemed too advanced for him, so he left them where they were.

He trained with his sister. They slipped into the basement while their father was absorbed in research. She showed him a series of basic blocks and attacks, and they practiced the drills side-by-side until they exactly mirrored each other. Every time they heard their father's footsteps upstairs, they froze, afraid he would come looking for them. When he finally did call them up for supper, they stashed Robin's borrowed equipment away in a frenzy, like a couple of kids hiding cigarettes they'd been smoking on the sly.

Finally, _finally_, his father went to bed, and Alex climbed out his bedroom window, armed with stakes and holy water. His sister tagged along, likewise armed, and insistent on playing watcher to his slayer. He tried to convince her to stay behind, especially since he knew, as she did not, that the demon that had killed their mother was out there somewhere. And after dreaming of his mother last night, the pain of that was fresh enough to make him want to do something about it.

Robin would not leave him to patrol alone. Slayer he might be, but he didn't have the training for it. Reluctantly, he had to agree that she was right. He didn't know how to be the Slayer. He could translate any gravestones they happened upon that were in Latin, Greek, or Sumerian. He could date, give or take 100 years, any mystical artifacts they found lying around. He could identify dozens of different demon species, and even if he couldn't remember how to kill them, he could remember the specific book where he could find that information. He knew meditation techniques to improve memory and recall, and he could give a full account on the history of the Watcher's Council.

But he knew diddlysquat about fighting. Not with a sword, or his hands, or a crossbow. He knew the stake went in the heart, but that about covered it. Combat was phase two of a watcher's training. After all, theoretically, he wouldn't have had a slayer of his own to train for another twenty years.

A slayer's training started with the practical: how to hunt, how to defend, how to kill, how to survive. That was what Robin had been learning, and that was what he needed her to teach him.

He had the strength of the Slayer. The grace and balance. The speed and endurance. The healing. The 'spidey-sense', as his mother had called it, for vampires. But without training, only luck could marshal those skills into victory. Especially considering that the demon he hunted was stronger than a vampire and had already killed one slayer.

So Alex allowed Robin to follow along, hoping that between his slayer gifts and watcher training, and her slayer training and newly restored magic, that combined they might form one decent slayer.

They wandered the cemeteries. They circled the Bronze. And just as he was ready to call it quits, he found his quarry down an alley between the butcher's shop and the thrift shop. Apparently, desperate vamps sometimes rifled through the dumpster looking for pig's blood and cow's blood that had been thrown out. This particular vamp was more down on his luck than dumpster diving for expired animal blood would suggest, considering that he was now unconscious on the ground, still in vamp face, having just been drained by the victim he had intended on draining.

The man (demon, Alex reminded himself) stepped over the vampire's body and slowly stalked closer to Alex and Robin. They had him trapped, blocking his only exit. The alley ended in a brick wall behind him, and the back doors to both shops were locked and barred.

He looked like any ordinary human, a bit on the weak side, even. Tall, but scrawny with dark hair that flopped over his forehead and skin so pale it almost glowed in the moonlight. But then his eyes changed to purple, revealing himself for the demon he was. Robin gasped, remembering perhaps the last time she had seen those purple eyes, and pulled out a stake in preparation.

"Little slayer," the demon said, although his lips didn't move. He was still at the opposite end of the alley from them, and yet he sounded as if he were standing right next to them. "Little watcher."

"Alex, let's go," Robin begged.

"I know you." The demon paused mid-stride and gasped, eyes widening until they nearly glowed purple. "Such wondrous possibilities that never occurred to me before. I walk in your world now, child. The mirror has cracked from side to side, and I _walk_ in your world!"

The demon laughed. The sound echoed inside Alex's head, and he pressed his hands to his ears as if that could quiet the deep rumbling of the demon's laughter.

The demon resumed his steady approach. "I walk in your world, and I have the power to _change_ what I have seen. I am half sick of shadows reflected in glass. Time's drumbeat always beyond my reach. No more.

"_I_ am the thief of time now. I will steal all your tomorrows. I will reclaim what you have stolen."

Alex gripped the pointy end of a stake, prayed for slayer aim, and threw with all his considerable might.

The stake seemed to find its target, embedding itself in the demon's torso. But then he dissolved into mist, and the stake clattered to the ground. He rematerialized ten feet closer, and Alex and Robin jumped back.

"Think me a vampire? Tainted half-breed?" The voice so close, as if inside their heads, while the demon's lips never moved. "You will die, little slayer, and the world will _change_. Morning will dawn on a new world, a world of my making. And where I go, none can follow."

The demon quickened his advance. Alex charged. One kick, one punch, the man absorbed them both, hardly phased. Stronger than any vampire. Alex blocked the man's first punch, the second sent him flying to the end of the alley, rolling nearly to the street, and leaving Robin standing alone in front of the demon.

She turned to run, and the demon gave chase. One hand closed around her wrist, and she screamed.

"GET BACK!" Fury in her voice that Alex had never heard before. Amazingly, the demon was hurled back as if by an invisible force, hitting the brick wall at the end of the alley with a loud thud and then sliding down to land in a heap on the ground. The demon shook his head, as if puzzled. Robin looked as surprised as he did.

"Robin, run, let's go," Alex called urgently. He knew when retreat was called for. She dashed towards him, and he waited for her. As his hand closed around hers, he turned to run, pulling her behind him.

A limo screeched to a halt in front of them, the length of the car stretched across the alley's entire outlet to the street, and thus blocking their escape. Thoughts of evil law firms danced through his head. Vague memories of vampire lawyers in limos and beachside sacrifices. Behind them, the demon had regained his feet and was headed their way. Trapped. Nowhere to run.

Then the limo's back door opened, and Spike leaned out. "Don't just stand there!"

Alex didn't need more of an invitation than that. He sprinted the remaining distance, dragging Robin along behind him as she did her best to keep up. Spike grabbed for both of them, hauling them into the limo, which took off again before the door had even fully closed.

He dumped them in the bench seat across from him.

"Aunt Dawn!" the twins chorused.

She hugged them both tight, one on each side. "You guys are in so much trouble! I get to the house, and when Giles decides to wake you both up so your favorite aunt can dote on you, what does he find? You've both stuffed your beds and snuck out the window. What the hell were you thinking? Everyone's out looking for you. And… and… that was a demon you were running from, wasn't it? Spike? That _was_ a demon, right?"

"Sure was, pet. And not just any demon. Demon of the day, I'd wager." Spike was reclining back across his own bench seat, brooding on something.

Alex could sense the weight of his uncle's stare and resolutely avoided it. He felt the twinge in his gut that signaled vampire, a new sensation he'd never experienced around Spike before. He wondered if his uncle felt a matching twinge that signaled slayer.

"You could have got yourselves _killed_!" Dawn pointed out, reminding them both of their near escape. She still held them both in firm hugs, her own fear echoed in her fierce grip.

"Sorry."

"Yeah, sorry."

"Ok, you should know that Giles is completely ballistic. Out of his mind. Now, I've been in your shoes before, so my advice—"

"Ask me, should be helping him string the pair of them up." Spike shook his head, eyes still fixed on Alex. "Damn fools, the both of you. Lucky for you I've still got this blasted chip, or I'd give you both a whipping you won't soon forget."

"Oh, they'll get punished, Spike. Just… Giles isn't thinking too clear right now. He's gonna overreact. I know. I've been there. Remember him almost staking you? I'm just giving them advice on damage control. That's what makes me the favorite aunt. Solid Giles advice."

The limo pulled up to the curb in front of their house. Dawn rubbed their arms as if to instill courage through kinetic energy.

"Ok, first off. Crying is good. You both can cry on command, right? Work up some tears. Crying throws him off his game. Heartfelt apologies. Remorse. You've had a rough night, just want to go to bed. Get him to sleep on it, and he'll be calmer in the morning. Alrighty then. Showtime."

She climbed out of the car, but before the twins could follow, Spike planted his boot on the doorframe, blocking their exit with his leg.

"You run on in, Dawn. Give me a minute with the kiddies."

Robin looked panicked, and shrank back into the seat, as far away from him as she could get. Alex stared at Spike's combat boots and the hem of his leather duster, anywhere but his eyes.

"So…" Spike's tone was light and conversational. "Funny story. Dawn's understudy's on stage tonight. The demon cult I've spent the last two weeks stalking is probably meeting with their buyer tonight. And Dawn and I are clear on the other side of the country. Now why is that?"

He seemed to be puzzling that out, as if unclear on the answer himself. "Why? Oh, riiight!" He snapped his fingers. "Because not a single watcher can manage to find their missing slayer. Oh, and you can be sure they're missing her alright. Or should I say _him_?"

Alex flinched. Found out.

"Giles is so desperate, he wants to test Dawn. Figures the monks made her from slayer's blood, might be a long shot, but still…

"As for me, what should I tell him? You know, most vampires lived as long as I have, who know what they're looking for, especially if they've seen a slayer or two… pretty hard to slip one past us."

Hand braced against the seatback, no personal space between them, Spike got right in his face. Alex cringed back automatically, but couldn't help but meet his uncle's eyes. Not yellow, but the anger in them was terrifying all the same.

"So what do I tell him, Alex? When he asks me… so eager… last hope… please, Spike, can you sense the Slayer _anywhere_? What should I bloody well tell him, Alex?"

"Please, don't tell him," he begged. "I'll tell. I promise. Let me tell him. Just give me a day, okay?"

Spike leaned back, seemingly satisfied. He spared his first glance for Robin. "And you. Half pint. What the hell you playing at? Little miss perfect. Way I hear it, you ain't never been in trouble your whole life. Why on earth would you go along with this crazy little scheme your idiot brother cooked up? Patrolling? This isn't some game of red rover. Those things out there play for keeps. You're both damned lucky to be alive."

Her eyes welled up and spilled over. A moment later she was bawling in earnest. Alex wrapped one arm around her and glared at his uncle. She'd always been a little uneasy around Spike, and this was the stuff of nightmares.

"Oh, Christ, I'm sorry. Didn't mean to come on quite so grrr." Spike rolled his eyes and hauled them both out of the limo by the backs of their shirts. "C'mon. Time to face the music. Least you won't have to fake cry."

They trudged towards the front door. It swung open at their approach, Giles standing solemnly in the doorway. If looks could kill.

"Found a couple strays. Figured they were yours. I mean, this one's so whiny." Spike gave Robin a little shake, and she wobbled where she stood. "And this one's so damned aggravating, has to be yours." He gave Alex a little shake too, and just to prove the point, the boy wrenched himself out of the vampire's grip. Got shoved through the door for his effort.

Giles stepped to one side. "Please come in, Spike."

Dawn joined them in the entryway, giving everyone a dramatic yawn and stretch. "Wow, I'm beat. Long flight. Jetlag. Stressful day. Why don't we all get some sleep, talk things over in the morning, huh? Up to bed, kiddies."

They tried to slip upstairs, but Giles caught them both by the convenient collars that Spike had just released. He pondered his two guests for a moment, his eyes flicking between the living room and the upstairs.

"The couch pulls out," Giles offered, "but I doubt Spike will appreciate the morning light. I suppose you'll have to take my bed."

"You're the best," Dawn assured him, with a kiss to one cheek. She kissed each twin goodnight as well, with a whispered, "Sorry, kids, gave it my best shot," before heading up to bed with Spike in tow.

Giles deposited the twins on said couch and sank into a chair directly across from them. One hand absently rubbed at his lame leg. Alex imagined he'd overworked it in worried pacing. "Have you any idea… _any_ idea… what you just put me through? I have never in my life been so utterly… terrified. Thinking you might be…"

Unable to finish that thought, Giles bowed his head. His glasses landed on the coffee table, thrown none too gently. He rubbed his hands over his eyes, a ragged breath the first sign that his carefully maintained composure was breaking. Alex was prepared for his father's anger, would have preferred it in fact. This barely restrained anguish was a hundred times worse.

"Go to bed." His father's voice was rough, thick with unshed tears, and he didn't lift his head. "I'll deal with the both of you tomorrow."

Robin dashed up the stairs, not needing to be told twice.

Alex hesitated. "Dad, I'm sorry."

"Go to bed, Alex," his father's voice cracked on his name. The hands covering his face were trembling.

Alex crept up the stairs, watching behind him as he went. His father rubbing at his eyes, breathing deeply, trying not fall apart until he was alone. Alex knew as soon as he was out of earshot, his father would stop holding back and let himself cry. Knowing that he was the cause of it brought him to his own shameful tears.

* * *

Giles sat on the back porch, nursing a tumbler of scotch and desperately trying not to imagine all the ways he might have lost his children this evening. His hands still shook slightly. And his eyes were raw from the crying jag he'd allowed himself. At least when Alex had run away a couple days ago, he'd had the courtesy to do it in the middle of the day.

Slipping out after dark… Giles' watcher education painted all the horrible ways that could have played out. He shuddered and took a deep swallow from the tumbler, a pleasant warmth to chase away the cold knot of fear.

The door opened behind him. Dawn's light tread padded up next to him, and she found a seat on the step beside him.

"Thought you were jetlagged," he reminded her with one arched eyebrow.

"Only three hours. Also, pretty much a night owl. 'Sides the twins still have me wigged."

"Indeed."

"And…" Sheepishly, she pulled a pack of cigarettes from her pocket. "Came outside for one of these."

Giles watched her dubiously as she tapped one out and lit it.

"I know what you're thinking, and no, I didn't get this from Spike. He hates that I do it. He quit, in fact. Ironic, huh? All the nagging I used to do, and now he's the one nagging me. Anyway, I started after… Well, I used to sneak his cigarettes sometimes after… those first few weeks after Buffy's funeral."

"Were you in a hurry to join her?"

"Look, I'll quit smoking soon as you quit drinking."

Giles saluted her with his glass and finished it off.

"You know, you don't have the monopoly on grief here, Giles. She was mine, too. She was more than just my sister… the monks made me from her. She was the best part of me."

"She was the best part of all of us."

They sat in silence for several minutes, Dawn taking slow thoughtful drags off her cigarette and tapping the ash out into the bushes, both of them staring wistfully into the darkness. Giles rolled the empty tumbler between his palms, fighting the urge to pour another glass.

"I suppose… If tonight is a night for indulging our vices, then I'll take one of those too." Giles set his glass aside and reached for her pack of cigarettes, ignoring Dawn's look of surprise as he traded one drug for another.

"I didn't know you smoked."

"When I was quite a bit younger. Not very often since. And never in front of you. Didn't want to be a bad influence. Obviously, not an issue anymore, seeing as _you'll_ be corrupting _me_." He smiled as she lit his for him.

"From your Ripper days, huh?"

He shook his head ruefully. "Do I even want to know how much your sister told you?"

"Nothing much while I lived here. After I went to college on the other hand… All grown up… Whole different story. We sisters tell each other everything." She waggled her eyebrows. "And I mean _everything_."

She nudged him playfully with her shoulder, and he blushed. "Yes, well, please do remember that I have plenty of dirt on you. Not to mention a plethora of tabloids that would pay handsomely for the honor of printing it."

"Nah. The paparazzi leave me alone. Spike terrifies them." She reached across him for his empty tumbler. "If we're gonna share vices, pour me some."

He looked at her as if he'd never seen her before, completely appalled. The smoking was one thing, but this shattered his remaining illusions.

As if reading his mind, she rolled her eyes and gently scolded, "Giles, I'm not fourteen. I'm twice that. If you can bum a smoke off me, I think you can share some scotch without the universe imploding." She wiggled the glass in front of him. "C'mon. I know you've got the bottle around here somewhere. You weren't planning on stopping at one glass. Not tonight."

He didn't bother to argue. Didn't bother going inside for a second glass either. He filled the tumbler, and they passed it back and forth between them. She lit him a second cigarette when he'd finished the first. That sat in companionable silence for several minutes, enjoying the twin burn of smoke and scotch. He could tell she was working up to something. He refilled the glass a second time.

She sighed. "You know, Giles, you shouldn't have to sleep on the couch while we're here."

"I suppose we could put an air mattress in one of the twin's rooms. They can double up in the other."

"That's not what I meant." Dawn sighed again and looked over her shoulder at the house. "You're like a gazillionaire with all the Council money. You could afford a bigger house. With guest rooms."

"Buffy and I talked about that once, after we came into that money. This house… Your mother lived here. It was home to both you girls for so many years, stability and comfort that was sorely needed in light of the hardships faced on the Hellmouth."

He took another long swallow, chased with a slow drag. The warmth numbed him enough to keep going. "This is where Buffy and I started our life together, started our family, our marriage—"

"In that order," Dawn reminded him with a giggle.

"This is where you became part of my family too," he continued as if he hadn't been interrupted. She leaned her head against his shoulder and swiped the tumbler from him. "Alex took his first steps here. Robin came home to us here, under this roof. Hell, Anya delivered Nick there on that kitchen floor."

"Yeah, that was one helluva Fourth of July."

"This is my home, Dawn. The home I made with Buffy, and there are just too many memories."

"That's just it, Giles. You're drowning in memories here. You need a fresh start. A home for the three of you without so much baggage. Plus, you know, guest rooms for when your favorite sister-in-law wants to escape the spotlight."

Giles knew she meant well. They all did, each of them in their own way trying to shepherd him through his grieving. But none of them could truly understand his loss. More than losing his wife and the mother of his children, he was a watcher who had lost his slayer. Stronger men than him had been destroyed by that.

* * *

Giles blamed the alcohol for the dreams, the nightmares that tormented him through the night. Buffy died over and over again in his dreams. Vampire. Demon. God. The Master. Angelus. The Mortog Beast. He felt her die each time, wrapped in her Watcher's magic like armor. He had taken her pain before, in other battles, and then watched as the combination of slayer healing and watcher magic mended all but the worst of her injuries before they'd hardly spilt blood.

But when she took the fatal blow, more than slayer healing or watcher magic could fix, Giles fell to his knees as the link between them severed. He was gutted. His Slayer was dead.

He felt her die over and over. A hundred different gruesome ends gutted him each time, leaving him amazed that he was not dead on the ground beside her.

But in all his many dreams of her many deaths, he never relived her true death. He had buried that so deep, it was less real than anything his imagination could conjure.

He searched for her across his dreamscape, in those moments where he was lucid enough to know that he was dreaming, searched for his dreamcatcher who could chase his nightmares away. He found their oak tree, but it was dark and foreboding without her. A bolt of lightening split the thickest branch from the trunk, and he staggered back to avoid its crash. A storm raged above him, and Buffy was nowhere to be found. He couldn't control his dreams without her, and they dragged him under, back into the hell that was his Slayer dying over and over again and him powerless to stop it.

* * *

He could feel the pull of the dawn nearing. Time rushing past him like the ocean surf, and then came the undertow with the morning light. Time's pulse so much louder in his mind with the absence of his kind, with her absence most especially.

He waited for the dawn, and for the first time since his arrival, it brought hope. No longer outside this world, trapped behind the glass, doomed to see but not to live. No longer dependent on whatever magically inclined mortals or demons deigned to send him offerings in exchange for what he could foretell. Now he could feed his own hunger.

And now that he had seen the little slayer and little watcher, he also knew that he could thwart his own fate, just as all those who had sought his visions had once desired. Time's Thief, this world would know him as. Fate's Master.

Dawn's undertow dragged him under and spit him out into the new day. And just as if his intention was as good as action, he could feel the little ripples as time shifted around him. His mind sought hers, but still the yawning emptiness remained. Apparently intention alone was not enough to restore her. But the shifting ripples of time gave him hope that he _could_ restore her.

* * *

John answered the door. His complexion was ashen. "Where's Willow?" he asked peering behind them.

"Willow's not here yet?" Anya complained. "We manage to get all the boys packed off to daycare for her emergency Scoobie meeting, and she's not even here yet? How rude!" She thumped Xander's arm hard enough he flinched. "I told you we had time for sex."

He flushed and pressed a box of donuts into John's shaking hands. "We come bearing breakfast. Plenty of jellies."

"Did Willow tell you? Did she warn you?" John stopped them at the threshold.

Xander reflected on the hasty morning phone call. "Come here. Bring Anya. That pretty much covered it. Willow wasn't exactly a fount of information. So, bring us up to speed. What has you looking like death warmed over?"

"Buffy."

"Ah," he nodded, suddenly understanding. "The demon that killed Buffy is back. Yeah, Willow told us a couple days ago. Haven't slept well myself since then. Told us not to say anything to Giles."

"But it's not exactly 'rush the kids in their jammies to daycare' kind of news, now is it?" Anya grumbled.

John ran a hand across his face as if still trying to compose himself. "No, not that. Buffy. She's in the kitchen."

"April," Anya corrected kindly. "You mean April's in the kitchen."

"They both are. April and Buffy."

Curious, and seemingly unaffected by the emotional charge of that possibility, Anya headed towards the kitchen to check it out for herself.

"What?" Xander remained frozen in place, his mind stuck on one word. "What?" He looked helplessly at John for explanation. This was too cruel to be a joke. "What?"

John shrugged, just as lost. "I don't know. I went out for the paper, and she was just standing there. Said she was there to pick up April for work. Like it was the most normal thing in the world."

Anya called back from the kitchen doorway. "He's right, Xander. Buffy's in the kitchen. And very much alive." She placed a hand to her still flat belly and frowned. "Does this mean we can't name the baby Buffy?"

Next:  
Part 6: Sometimes Even Those Who Ace History Are Doomed to Repeat It


	6. Even Those Who Ace History, Repeat It

ORIGINALLY POSTED: May 4, 2008  
TITLE: Unchosen  
AUTHOR: JK Philips  
RATING: R  
SUMMARY: Sequel to the Death Brings Clarity saga, now nearly ten years after The Fine Art of Blackmail. Giles wanted to prevent his daughter from inheriting her mother's destiny. He wanted to give his son the choice he never had. He wanted Buffy to live a lifetime beside him. Fate had other plans...  
SPOILERS: Everything up to "The Gift"  
DISCLAIMER: I do not own these characters; they are the property of Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy & Fox. I simply am doing this for fun, and non-profit use.  
SECOND DISCLAIMER: I gave Buffy the line "Wake up, go to work, get drunk, go to sleep" which is the chorus to a Pat McCurdy song. He's a rowdy bar musician with a cult following in the Midwest (fun to see live if you get the chance). The words just fit too perfectly to pass up. Plus, it amused me.

* * *

Warning: This chapter is very long (50+ pages), but I wanted to keep the flashback as one chapter.

* * *

Part 6: Sometimes Even Those Who Ace History Are Doomed to Repeat It

_More than two years ago…_

Giles stood between his son and daughter, their hands curled tight in his own. Tears streamed down both their faces, but he remained stoic. The plain pine casket, made by his own hands, lay in its final resting place. The cross, made by Xander's more skilled hands, marked the gravesite. The first shovelful of dirt hit the wood with a thud that made both children flinch. Robin buried her head against his side and sobbed. Alex was trying to be brave, and Giles tucked him against his other side so he wouldn't have to be.

"It's not fair," Alex sobbed.

"Everything has its time," Giles reminded him gently. He wished he could have spared his children that particular lesson. "And it was a good death, a brave death, saving the both of you."

His eyes met Buffy's across the open grave, and she gave him a sad smile as she continued pitching each shovelful of dirt onto the casket.

"He's not gonna…" Robin's voice was muffled against his side, and he had to bend to hear her. "I mean, you know, he won't be one of _them_, will he?"

"A vampire?"

She nodded.

He smiled softly and rubbed her back. "No, no he won't."

Alex pulled away from the comfort of his father's embrace and studied the grave for a moment. When he met Giles' eyes, his brow was furrowed with worry. "Can we conse-, conse-, make the ground holy? Just in case?"

"Consecrate. If you like. He won't rise, though. I promise."

Buffy handed Giles the shovel and brushed the dirt off her hands. "I'll go get some holy water. You keep shoveling."

Giles finished filling the grave, and Buffy poured an entire bottle of holy water over it. He threw her a slightly scolding look, wasting that much holy water simply to soothe the children's fears. A few drops would have sufficed. She merely shrugged a non-apology.

They stood solemnly at the new grave, the children sandwiched between them, and each took their turn saying goodbye. Buffy ducked her head to hide her own tears, embarrassed perhaps, although she shouldn't be.

Leaky had been a good dog. A loyal dog. He had died protecting his family, and he could rest in peace knowing they were safe.

* * *

Summer, just like every summer before, promoted April and John to every child's favorite relation. They had a swimming pool. After Leaky's funeral, Buffy and Giles took the twins there to lift their mood. Xander and Anya's boys were already playing Marco Polo in the shallow end with John's grandson. The twins had hardly said hello to their hosts before stripping down to their swimsuits to join them.

The adults were circled around the patio table playing cards. One chair left. Giles offered it to Buffy, like a gentlemen, but she insisted he take it, and then made herself comfortable in his lap.

"So, Buff, Leaky get his proper send off?" Xander asked.

"Yeah. The kids were afraid he would… umm…" She tailed off, suddenly remembering April and John's presence. "Well, they wanted us to bury him special. You know, _special_?"

Xander laughed, shook his head, and added some chips to the pile in the center. "I'm in."

"That's silly," Anya insisted. "Everyone knows you can't make a dog into a vampire."

The Scoobies threw nervous glances in John and April's direction.

"Because vampires aren't real," Anya added when she noticed her faux pas. "And neither are demons."

"Well, with the number of deaths by blood loss we get in this town, sometimes I wonder." April seemed to notice the uncomfortable shifting of the others in their seats and regretted her comment. "Sorry, no more cop talk. Promise." She added her own chips to the pot. "I'm in. And raise."

John sighed and threw his cards in. "Fold. Hmmm… Wonder where the kids got that idea. Vampires?"

"My fault," Xander covered. "Dawnie classic movie marathon."

"Really, Xander," John scolded. "They're too young for slasher movies. Vampires and werewolves… you should know better. They're only ten. If I were Giles, they'd be sleeping at your house 'til their nightmares were gone."

"No, no, no, Harris household is full enough. Or will be soon." He patted Anya's round stomach with pride. "After little Danny."

"Danielle," Anya corrected irritably. She tossed her own chips in. "I call. And it's going to be a girl, Xander Harris. Danielle. A girl, I'm absolutely sure. Four boys would be ridiculous."

Xander folded, and the betting went back and forth between Anya and April, until Anya shoved her entire stack to the center and went all in and April matched her. Anya complained that her sizeable bet was meant to scare her opponent off, thus ensuring her the pot by default. Clearly April didn't understand the nuances of bluffing and poker.

"Full house, queens over tens," April announced proudly as she spread her hand on the table.

Anya grumbled as she flopped her hand down. "I've only got eights."

Xander leaned forward and counted them out. "But you have four of them."

"And that's better?"

"Yup."

She beamed and collected her winnings, counting them out into stacks. Anya always seemed happiest when counting money. "I've changed my mind. Feel free to call my bluff anytime you like."

Xander laughed and coached her kindly, "An, honey, it's not bluffing if you think you might win."

"What are we playing for?" Giles asked.

John motioned between Xander and Anya. "They're playing for free babysitting. We're playing for a little handyman work around the house. Shall we deal you both in?"

Buffy sat up straighter in his lap. "Sure, we'll play for free babysitting." They didn't really _need_ babysitters. They still had next-door, on-call babysitting. Marianne had long since married and moved on, and they'd replaced her three times over, their current sitter a grad student named Laura. The twins got along well with Laura, but they preferred John and April, or Xander and Anya.

"And what are you going to contribute if you lose?" John asked thoughtfully, as if he already had something in mind.

"We'll take all the babysitting we can get," Xander suggested. His three boys were rambunctious and tended to gang up on unsuspecting sitters. Although, to be fair, they were nowhere near as bad if Alex wasn't around to inspire them to new and bigger stunts.

"April and I will take a weekend away with the pair of you. Ever since that academy of yours opened to the public, we hardly see you anymore. Well, I say we, I mean Giles. Buffy and April work together, but lately you, Professor, have managed to weasel out of every single police function April drags me to. I've been stuck making small talk with all the wives."

Giles grimaced in sympathy. He remembered what that could be like. John rescuing him from that tedium had been how they first met. He had been blessed that night to find a friend his own age, not to mention someone who could understand the emotional toll of having a wife with a dangerous job. That their wives now worked together as partners cemented that friendship into family.

"All right, shuffle up and deal." Buffy rubbed her hands together in anticipation. Giles suspected she would rig the game so they lost to John or April. She was always complaining that he worked too much. She didn't seem to grasp the enormity of his task, even with all the money the Council had left him. Rebuilding an organization that had once spanned the globe, with bloodlines that had traced as far back as the written word. From scratch. Giles' collection of watchers' diaries, he and Wesley's training, that was all that remained of the Council's traditions and lore.

When it was Buffy's turn to deal, he noticed her dealing from the bottom. Smooth and practiced, she was a quick study. Of course, slayer dexterity gave her an advantage, and he had rationalized teaching her the card tricks of his youth with the excuse that it would help make her fingers more nimble. It had definitely improved her reload time with the crossbow.

When Giles picked up his cards and saw his hand, he groaned. She was definitely planning to throw the game. She smiled at him innocently. He flipped his hand over. "I fold."

They played cards until the kids finally gave up on swimming. One by one, they each found a lap to sit in, each child pruned up and shivering. Anders, the youngest, didn't want to take his little inflatable water wings off, cried when they forced him, then fell asleep against his mother's pregnant belly. Robin complained that Nick kept splashing her. (The beginnings of a crush, perhaps.) Erik claimed Willow's lap when she arrived, John dragging a chair out from the kitchen for her. Alex was the last out of the pool. His lips were nearly blue, and Buffy wrapped two towels around him, giving him a thorough rubdown to warm him up. Giles used her distraction to stack the deck in his favor during his deal.

Laps full of hungry kids, they had to eventually abandon the game to put dinner on the table. But first, John counted out the stacks and insisted that Buffy and Giles had lost and would owe them that weekend away. Anya passed over the sleeping Anders to Buffy's arms while she dried off her eldest, and reminded the pair of them that they would owe some babysitting duty as well.

Xander took the toddler back from Buffy, giving Giles a wary look. In their back and forth game of irritating each other through their children: drum sets and finger-paints, toy guns with obnoxious sound effects, practical jokes the children learned and practiced ad nauseam, forts assembled from every movable scrap of furniture, sugar highs and missed bedtimes, musical stuffed animals that needed no batteries… Well, Xander might have started the game, but Giles was winning. With three, soon to be four, little ones in the Harris household, the numbers had finally tipped in Giles' favor. He gave Xander a wicked smile.

As they readied dinner, the mood was relaxed, teasing, a spot of normality in their otherwise destiny-filled life. Time spent with April and John offered a kind of sanctuary away from all things Hellmouth-related. The Tims remained ignorant of the supernatural, and the rest of the Scoobies took care not to shatter their innocence. And if John wondered why his grandson was always dragged into pretend sword fights against monsters when he played with the other children, well he probably just figured they all had good imaginations.

Of course, even in this sanctuary, there were reminders. Willow came bearing a book for Buffy. Giles craned his neck to get a good look. He recognized the insignia of the Council on the spine, but he didn't recognize that particular volume.

"Willow found it at an estate sale," Buffy explained in a hushed whisper. "Watcher's diary."

Giles puzzled that out for a moment. When he was posted as the Watcher to the active Slayer, the Council had entrusted him with the original copies of all the diaries. They had retained their own copies, of course, copies that had been buried beneath the rubble after the Council's destruction. But Giles couldn't imagine where Willow might have found one he had never seen.

"May I?" He took the book from her, flipping through the pages and skimming through the text. A watcher who had never had a slayer, who had trained a potential who was never Called. A diary that did not end as abruptly as all those in Giles' possession. That explained it. He only had the diaries for those watchers who had slayers. The records for all the other watchers distilled their noteworthy experiences down to the necessary facts, sometimes an entire generation of watchers filling barely a page in the Council history texts. Their diaries passed back to their families. Archiving every diary from every watcher who ever lived was more than even the legendary Council Archives could manage.

She snagged the volume back from him. "You can have it when I'm done."

"Since when have you had any interest in reading watcher diaries?"

John saved her from answering when he appeared at Giles' side. She stuffed the book in her purse and out of sight. And John distracted his friend in conversation, monopolizing his attention for the rest of the evening.

Later, as they slipped into bed for the night, the thought of that watcher's diary nagged at him. Not in and of itself, but because now that he thought about it, Buffy _had_ been dipping into his collection of watchers' diaries lately. He had a sick suspicion why.

As she pillowed her head on his chest, one arm and one leg wrapped over him, he mustered up the courage to ask her.

"What are you looking for in the diaries, Buffy?"

She tensed in his arms, as if she'd been afraid of having this conversation, and then held him tighter, as if afraid he'd bolt. "Final battles."

He remembered their research session in the Magic Box all those years ago, when a close call during patrol had sent her on a similar quest. _I realize that every Slayer comes with an expiration mark on the package. But I want mine to be a long time from now_. The diaries had been no help then, and she'd gone to Spike for the tales he could tell.

Giles felt the familiar ache in his chest when confronted with her inevitable death. He couldn't breathe. He couldn't answer her. He also couldn't guess at what crisis had prompted her quest.

"Giles, I haven't found any mentions of slayers my age."

No, there wouldn't be. He'd sheltered her from the brutal truth. To put a definite age to expected slayer life expectancy seemed akin to a doctor telling a terminal patient just how many months they had left to live.

But now she was coming to the answer on her own. And better from his lips than a long-dead watcher's pen.

"You're the oldest now, Buffy. The oldest slayer in history." He could only have made that confession in the darkness of their bedroom, where he would not have to witness the fear in her eyes. Where she would not see the terror in his.

She absorbed that for a moment, very still against him. No nervous energy, unlike him who couldn't stop his hand from stroking up and down her bare arm. "And the silver medal goes to…"

"Twenty-six."

That, too, she took in so very calmly. He wanted to scream and swear and shake his fist at Fate: _I defy you, stars!_ She seemed to simply accept this knowledge. He prayed that she would ask him no more questions. This was a topic he desperately tried to avoid both discussing and thinking about. All those watchers' diaries, whose pages ended so abruptly and failed to record their slayer's final battle… Giles had told her back then that the journals stopped because it was too painful. Too painful to put to paper, yes, but also too painful to read. What watcher could have possibly read the accounts? None who had slayers of their own, that's for sure.

"There's something else you never told me from those diaries, you know." A teasing note crept into her voice. She was changing the subject, thank God. "You never mentioned how many of them ended up like us." If he had any doubt what she meant by "us," she clarified her meaning with wandering hands.

"Well, not all of those— ah!— were, ummm… were real— ah!— m-m-marriages. Oh, dear Lord!" He rolled them both until he was on top, cradled between her thighs. He kissed her deeply, chasing away his fears of her death with the taste of her now. He pulled back and finished his thought. He didn't want her believing every male watcher ended up in bed with his slayer. "Historically, a girl spending so much time alone and unchaperoned with a man would have drawn undue attention unless he was her husband or relation."

"A marriage of convenience, huh?" Her gentle kisses along his neck were quickly driving away the lingering despair of their previous topic of conversation.

"Quite so."

"But we're not exactly trendsetters," she insisted, while intently focused on stripping him of his nightclothes.

"No." He was equally intent on stripping her of hers. "It was not that uncommon, if frowned upon by the Council. Although, if I'd told you that in high school, you'd have run screaming from the library."

"Or maybe I'd have seen the light sooner."

There were no more words. Skin to skin, kisses both desperate and tender, soft sighs, startled gasps, merging of bodies, the way women and men have behaved since the beginning, before time.

He should have wondered if maybe she had distracted him from the diaries on purpose.

Outside, lightening flashed and a storm raged.

* * *

The ancient tome, leather bound with the symbol of his world branded on its cover, promised blessed escape. He traced his long fingers across the grooves of that mark, circles and arcs repeated in mirror image across a thick dividing line that represented the glass divide between worlds, the window through which his kind had watched through countless eons, damned never to interfere, slaves to Fate. In his language, that symbol meant home.

There was nothing left for him in this world. He had lost all. And so he read the sacred words from his stolen book, words that had never been uttered by his kind before. The portal opened before him, the glass divide cracked from side-to-side so that he might pass between worlds. The sky flashed bright, and the storm rose, both worlds rebelling at the gap between them. His eyes glowed purple. He could hear the echo of his race in his mind, a steady hum as familiar as his own heartbeat.

He stepped through the waiting portal to the other side. The crack mended behind him.

* * *

The storm had passed by morning, only the lingering damp on the ground as evidence. In the summer heat of California, that too would disappear before noon. April and Buffy's first call of the day was to the morgue, the heat and humidity quickly forgotten in the frigid and sterile air of the autopsy room.

The coroner waved them over to the body on his table. Buffy felt the familiar twist in her gut that signaled vampire. This thing would rise in the near future, and she would need to find a way to get April and the coroner out of the room so she could stake it before that happened.

The coroner handed April his notes as he briefed her on the pertinent facts. "Total blood loss. I couldn't even squeeze enough out of him for a blood type."

April didn't seem phased. They saw that too frequently. This was the part of her day job Buffy disliked the most, having to face the victims she couldn't save. On the other hand, if they had been turned, it made her job as the Slayer easier. She could stake them before they could fight back.

"No ID, so I had someone upstairs try a missing persons search."

"Any luck?" Buffy placed herself strategically between the pair of them and the body on the table. Just in case.

"Depends on how you define luck." He was addressing her now. April was flipping through his notes. "They found a match." He handed Buffy the photo. Dead ringer for their body, no pun intended.

"So what's the problem?" April set aside the clipboard and leaned over Buffy to get a look at the photo.

"He's been missing for forty years."

April compared the body to the photo. "That's impossible. He hasn't aged a day."

"That's why I called the pair of you."

* * *

"So, Giles, if vampires drink human blood, what drinks vampire blood?"

Giles was stumped. He looked across the table at Wesley, who looked equally stumped.

Willow seemed willing to guess. "Some kind of uber-vamp?"

"I'm still unclear on why we should care?" Stein had just returned from retrieving a potential and looked bone weary. The girl's mother was a single parent, troubled apparently, and had overdosed on drugs. In the absence of living relations, Stein had arranged for her adoption and placement with her future watcher. The entire ordeal had been obviously taxing, and it was understandable if his patience was short.

"Uber-vamp seems like something we should care about," Buffy pointed out.

"But if the thing only feeds on vampires, then why should we care? Roll out the red carpet. All-you-can-eat buffet."

"We don't know what else its intentions might be," Wesley warned. "For all we know, it could be draining vampires as a sacrifice to raise a more dangerous demon."

Willow perked up. "Oh! The mayor had to eat those nasty spiders before his ascension." She deflated as the memories swept over her face. They'd so narrowly averted disaster then, and the number who had died to do so was disheartening. They could hardly risk a battle of that magnitude again when the Council's numbers were still so small.

"It deserves research, in any case." Giles' statement carried a finality to it that sent the other watchers from the room to begin the task. He wasn't entirely used to that. He still felt the shadow of all his superiors over him; he sometimes forgot that they were all gone and he headed the Council now. His own authority often caught him by surprise.

A book passed from Willow's hands to Buffy's, another watcher's diary, under the table to escape notice. He noticed all the same, but dismissed it from his mind. A forgivable self-deception.

* * *

Stein was the first to see the demon in person. He made his report that evening to the others after Buffy's patrol. Wesley sketched the demon from his description, although it looked more like a wanted poster than a demon. The sketch looked human, an average man of weak build, if slightly taller than average. Pale, thin, as if a strong wind could knock him over. Fine boned with hollow cheekbones, sharp pointed nose, and a pronounced chin. Dark, unruly hair, and dark eyes. It was the eyes that gave him away. Well, that and the drained vampire at his feet. He spoke through some kind of telepathy, and when he did, his eyes glowed purple.

Stein didn't tell them what the demon had said to him. He edited the encounter to his own advantage.

He had headed home after a dead-end research session. He had thought he was stumbling onto a vampire attack, that is until the vampire fell to the ground, still in game face, yellow eyes open and unfocused, motionless at the man's feet.

The vampire had been between them, but as he fell out of the way, Stein and the demon got a good look at each other.

"I know you. I know your sin. They will know it too."

The eyes had changed to purple as the voice echoed in his mind. He didn't tell the others what the demon had said. He told them only that the eyes had changed to purple as the demon turned on the telepathy. He told them that the demon had threatened him, which wasn't entirely a lie. And then, for some unfathomable reason, the demon had departed instead of attacking, turning to mist and slipping away like fog.

Although as he had melted away, he left with one more riddle, another clue that Stein kept to himself: "I leave you in peace, Watcher, for your death will change nothing. We are both slaves to our Fate, no matter how we may test our bonds."

Wesley added the purple eyes to his black and white sketch. A deep, royal purple that almost matched the real thing. Stein shuddered as he approved the final product.

When Stein went home for the second time that night, it was the voice more than the eyes that haunted him.

_I know your sin._

* * *

The demon hunted. This form acted almost as bait for the undead abominations that infested this world. They did not belong here. But then again, neither did he.

He caught the attention of a female vampress. She stalked him at a slight distance, drawn to apparent easy prey. He could sense her following him, getting closer. He let her know that he'd seen her, and then pretended to flee from her, all the while leading her closer to his lair, allowing himself to even stumble as he ran down the hill, through the meadow, towards the cave.

She seemed to enjoy the chase. His pheromones mimicked the smell of fear. His normal heartbeat simulated the rapid patter of a distressed human. Even his breathing continued the illusion of an easy mark.

He let her catch him at the mouth of the cave. He always caught them off guard, and she was no different. His entire being radiated weakness, so when they first felt his full strength, they were always unprepared.

He drained only enough to weaken her beyond the capacity for struggle. He carried her inside the cave, and laid her before the girl.

His child was fading. He force-fed her the vampire blood, but she coughed it up. She could not exist in this world. It was killing her. She was too young to endure the riptide of time on this side of the divide. As each dawn dragged her under and spit her out into the new day, she grew progressively weaker. He was strong enough to bear it, but she was not. She would not survive another morning, no matter how much vampire blood she drank.

And yet, he could not send her through the portal, send her home, and condemn her to a prison behind glass. Better to let her die here than damn her to the fate he had escaped.

"Let go," he told her.

She did. She dissolved into mist in his arms, and he breathed her in. One moment of bliss, and then he breathed her out again. She faded to nothingness in the air around him and was gone.

He finished off the vampress, but his hunger was not satisfied. He went hunting again. He encountered the watcher, read his fortune, as he had read so many fortunes before. Knowing the future never pleased them. And yet they never stopped asking for prophecy.

"We are both slaves to our Fate," he told the watcher. Her death had proved that to him.

When dawn came for him once more, he was ready. He knew what he had to do.

* * *

Giles set aside his research on the purple-eyed demon and drained vampires (thus far fruitless) long enough for his customary afternoon training with Buffy.

When he entered their practice room, Buffy was not the only one waiting for him. Robin and Wesley were there too.

Robin bounded over to him, giddy with excitement. "We're all gonna train together today. Wesley said."

"Did he?" Giles' glare would have cowed Wesley when they'd first met all those years ago at Sunnydale High. The years since had granted him a steel resolve that Giles had to admit was impressive.

"Actually, my idea," Buffy seemed oblivious to his irritation. She was grinning at Robin, and then showing off with a series of handsprings, cartwheels, and flips that landed her in front of him. She bounced up on the balls of her feet to give him a playful peck on the nose. "Double-date. Watchers and slayers." She pouted at him when he didn't return her enthusiasm. "C'mon, it'll be fun. Slayer versus slayer." Robin tried to tackle her, and Buffy flipped her, giggling, to the mat.

When he made no move to start their training, Wesley took the lead, directing Robin to begin her drills. Buffy joined in. Mother and daughter were beaming at each other, as if enjoying a shared hobby rather than preparing for future combat.

Giles watched, frozen, from the doorway, tension coiled in every muscle.

On Robin's tenth birthday, Giles had honored the bargain he had made with Wesley and allowed her to begin her training. Wesley had moved from LA to Sunnydale to take up the mantle of his calling. Her Watcher. Now in deed as well as name.

Wesley's relationship with Cordelia had previously ended. In fact, he mentioned that there seemed to be something between her and Angel now, which Giles frankly could not imagine. There was another woman Wesley spoke of with longing, a girl named Fred, whose affections were placed with someone else. So in short, he had nothing tying him to LA, in addition to a strong desire to be anywhere else.

His new life in Sunnydale suited him, and Robin happily accepted his tutelage. Giles suspected she might even have a crush on her mentor, though she never said anything outright to confirm it. But she thrilled at her training and had blossomed into confidence over the past six months of Wesley's sessions. She chattered about training over breakfast and dinner, eagerly demonstrated the moves she had learned – _Watch me! Watch! Did you see that? Father?_– until he had to scold her that shadow boxing in the house was going to end with something breaking. Most likely his heart, he didn't add.

Giles would give anything, absolutely anything, for his daughter not to be the Slayer. He loved Buffy. The generations of watchers' blood in his veins connected him to her, Watcher to Slayer, a bond stronger than his marriage vows, stronger than anything he had experienced in his life. Molded over his entire lifetime to serve her, his sole purpose her survival, each day she lived another victory. And he had counted more victories than any watcher before him. She had lived longer than all the others.

But no matter how much he loved Buffy, she was still his Slayer. She was the sword. He was the shield. But they were both crafted for battle. That, too, burned in his blood. He loved her, yes, but he sent her to fight all the same.

Robin might be a potential, might even be Called as the Slayer one day, but she was his daughter. Parental love was different. What kind of father could ask of his daughter the same things he would ask of a slayer?

Watching Buffy and Robin train together, daughter echoing the movements of her mother, Wesley calling out corrections, Giles felt something inside himself break. For the last six months, he had tried to ignore the reality of his daughter's training, tried to pretend that _this_ was not what Wesley and his daughter were doing behind closed doors. But they had shoved it in his face, and he could not stomach sharing in his daughter's slayer education, could not participate in stripping away her childhood and innocence.

He stormed across the training room and grabbed Buffy by one elbow, hauling her out into the hallway without breaking stride. He whipped off his glasses, and his eyes were murderous. His voice held the tone of absolute authority. "_I_ am your Watcher, not Wesley. You train with me, not him. Am I clear?"

She flinched back from his Ripper glare. "Jeeze, Giles, I only thought it would help Robin with—"

"This is not open for discussion." He released the bruising grip on her elbow and replaced his glasses. "Robin has her Watcher. And you have yours. There is no place for this… this slayer version of 'Wife Swap.'"

She crossed her arms, apparently rising to the challenge. "You know, there was a time when Wesley _was_ my Watcher, and you were just the librarian. I've trained with Wesley plenty."

"Remind me again how out of control you and Faith were on his watch."

She seemed to stew on this. "If he's such a terrible watcher, then why'd you give Robin to him?"

"I never said—" He stopped, took a breath, and forced himself to calm. "You are _mine_." It wasn't said with jealousy, but rather conviction. "Look, I trust Wesley to do his duty by Robin. But he doesn't know you as I do, doesn't know what you need. Training with Wesley could set you back." All true, and the implied corollary was that training with him would equally set Robin back. A lie of omission. Giles simply _couldn't_ train Robin.

"Fine," she acquiesced, perhaps swayed by his intensity. "But your rules, you enforce them." She pointed back at the training room door. "Robin had her heart set on this, so you get to be the big bad."

* * *

Willow was with a student when Buffy dropped in on her office hours. She caught her eye, got a little nod of acknowledgment, and then hung back out of the way, browsing through Willow's bookshelves as she waited her turn. She didn't recognize the student. Future watcher, maybe. Or possibly a classics major. Willow had a lot of those, too, and the two of them seemed to be reviewing mythology. Buffy eavesdropped.

"Her curse was that no one believed her, right? So they all treated her shitty. Like she was crazy."

Buffy smothered a laugh as she heard the overly-patient tone in Willow's reply that indicated she was going the extra mile for someone who probably wouldn't appreciate it. Buffy remembered that tone of voice from the many times Willow had tutored her through high school and college.

"It's not just that Cassandra was treated… unfairly… but that the curse trapped her. She was doomed to know the future, but because no one would believe her, she couldn't do anything about it. Can you imagine: she saw the fall of Troy, all those deaths? She tried to warn them, but they wouldn't listen. So then she had to witness it all happening for real, just like in her visions."

Buffy thought about Cordelia's visions. She was lucky enough, at least, to be able to prevent most of them from happening.

"But if she saw her own death, then why couldn't she stop that? I mean, she believed her own visions, so that wasn't the problem. She should have at least been able to stop her own death."

Willow exchanged another glance with Buffy and flashed one finger to signal one more minute. "Why do you think Cassandra died?"

Her student puzzled that out for a moment as he rearranged his baseball cap. He flipped through the text in his lap as if someone else might have already provided the answer. "Maybe… maybe… Well, the Greeks were really into fate, right? So maybe knowing the future didn't even matter, whether anyone believed her or not. It was all up to the gods anyway, and she couldn't avoid getting killed."

"That's one interpretation. Good answer."

He seemed pleased and rushed on with another idea. "That would mean her curse wasn't knowing the future, or having everyone think she was crazy, or even not being able to change it. Her curse was thinking she could change it in the first place. You know, feeling responsible for stuff that was out of her hands anyway."

"Excellent! I tell you what: bring up that exact point tomorrow in class, and we'll have a group discussion about it."

Willow walked him to the door, and then faced Buffy, locking the door behind her. She smiled, her patented hundred-watt Willow smile. "What brings the Buffster to UC-Sunny-D? You hardly ever drop in on office hours."

"Giles is in a mood, so we skipped training today." They took seats on either side of Willow's desk. Buffy felt faintly like she was in the principal's office. And coming off their recent argument, she felt like Giles had sent her.

Shaking off that image, she passed Willow a couple volumes from her purse. "I was hoping you could translate these. Not the whole thing, just any key parts."

"What kinda keys we looking for?"

"Slayer battles. Umm… you know, the kind of battles that end with a new Slayer."

"Oh. _Those_ kinds of battles. Are you okay? You're not feeling particularly… mortal… are you? 'Cause you've been big with the watcher diaries lately, and Giles said something to me yesterday, and I think you've got him a little wigged."

Buffy sighed. Having Willow's help would be, well, helpful. But this was sort of her personal project. No lives hanging in the balance, no apocalypse on the horizon. Willow's time was probably better spent on any number of watcher assignments that lives actually did depend on.

"C'mon, Buffy, share. Best friend, remember? You're supposed to be able to tell me anything. It's in the bylaws."

That decided her. She leaned forward, and Willow followed suit. She dropped her voice to a conspiratorial whisper, and now she was reminded less of the principal's office and more of a slumber party. "Alright. But please don't tell Giles. So before… the last time I went searching through the diaries, I wanted to know what happened to the slayers: how they died, what mistake they made, so I could do it different. So it wouldn't happen to me.

"But since then, I've realized everyone already spends all their time researching how to keep me alive. Well, not just me, but you get the point."

"You're worth it." Willow reached across the desk and gave her hand a little squeeze.

"Thanks, Will, but what I was getting at is this: everyone's focus is on helping me, on helping the Slayer, but…" She sighed and gave Willow's hand a little squeeze back. They all did so much for her, sacrificed so much. Did they know how grateful she was? She would have never lasted this long without them, all of them.

"This time, Will, I'm reading the diaries because I want to know what happened to the watchers after their slayers died."

"Oh." A pause. "And?"

Buffy abandoned her chair in favor of pacing the small office, trying to shed the pent-up energy she hadn't burned off in her usual training. She straightened towers of crooked books stacked across various surfaces, experiencing a sudden case of OCD only in the Overly Crappy Day kind of way. Giles' sudden temper still weighed on her, and the maudlin topic of conversation wasn't helping her mood. She hadn't planned on discussing this with Willow, but now that she'd started, she was eager to get it all off her chest.

"Most of the diaries just end. Nothing. Oops, she's dead, maybe a date and time for when it happened, sometimes not even that." She could hear the frustration in her own voice. It would have been nice to know the details, but she had already resigned herself to ignorance. The details, apparently, were beyond even the most emotionally repressed watcher's ability to clinically detach and report. "Giles said, back then, he said if they were anything like him, it was too painful."

Buffy remembered the look they'd shared after his admission. Until then, she'd never considered how her death would affect him. After her death, she'd had a front-row seat.

"I keep thinking about Marcus, letting himself get vamped, turning his Slayer—"

"Giles would never do that!" Willow seemed scandalized by the mere suggestion.

"Of course not, but I guess I worry. About him. And then I remembered that another watcher's diary talked about Marcus, about what it was like for him after Nicole died, and I thought… Well, the diaries may not talk about their slayers' final battles, but they sometimes talk about each other. Especially the beginning parts of the diaries, I've noticed that they usually mention the previous watcher."

"So…? Progress report?"

Buffy imagined that Willow's curiosity was as much for herself as for Giles. She was a watcher now, and at some point in the future she might have a slayer of her own. And if not her, then one of her many students for sure.

Buffy rejoined her friend, perching on the edge of the desk now instead of taking the chair. She still couldn't meet her eyes, focusing instead on a loose thread from the hem of her skirt.

"Some of them died with their slayers, same battle. Too many of them managed to get themselves killed later. High fatality rate for watchers the first year after. I'm choosing to live in denial and believe it wasn't on purpose. A few of them even went crazy, like literally. That leaves all the others who just… just _stopped_. Did nothing after."

"Maybe they needed to rest? Take a break from nightly life-and-death peril? That would be fair, wouldn't it, Buffy? I think they would deserve it more than anyone."

"Sure. If we were talking retirement, golfing in Myrtle Beach and playing bridge at the clubhouse. I mean they did _nothing_. I mean: Wake up. Go to work. Go to sleep. Repeat until dead. They all sounded so _miserable_, Will."

"That won't be Giles." Willow's total conviction might be more persuasive, if not for Buffy's firsthand evidence to the contrary. Unraveling before her eyes when Eyghon first returned. Charging off on a suicide mission to hurt Angelus after he murdered Miss Calendar. The weeks after her swan dive off Glory's tower, only Buffy's ghost as witness to his private grief beneath the public face he showed the others. Buffy had hoped that Dawn, and then the twins, would anchor him, would force him to move on after he'd lost her. The more watchers' diaries she read, the more fleeting she feared that tether to be.

"You're right," Buffy agreed bitterly. "For Giles it'll be: Wake up. Go to work. _Get drunk_. Go to sleep. Repeat until dead."

She held up one hand to forestall Willow's protests. She finally met her friend's eyes and saw the compassion reflected in them. Buffy smiled a sad, but hopeful smile. Hope was what had her pouring through every diary she could get her hands on. Buffy didn't accept defeat. She always managed to raise victory from the ashes. She'd been dead twice and lived to tell about it, after all. In the face of impossible odds, she'd created for herself the kind of life slayers weren't supposed to have: full of love and friendships and children, even. She'd always beaten the odds before. And so the longest lived slayer in history was determined to give her watcher a happily ever after.

"Will, there've been a lot of slayers over the years. If I can find just a few watchers' stories with a happy ending, maybe Giles will be able to follow in their footsteps, you know?"

Willow nodded and set the volumes Buffy had given her to one side, promising to translate anything relevant. She seemed pensive, and it was at the door as they said goodbye that Willow gave her a fierce hug and a whispered promise that she would look after Giles and the children, though she hoped it never came to that.

"You're gonna be the first slayer to die of old age," Willow insisted.

* * *

Anya put a name to the demon. "The Vaurabyll."

Sometimes, in light of her current life with Xander, they forgot about the centuries she'd spent as a vengeance demon. She'd embraced the life of stay-at-home mom, overseeing the Magic Box franchises from afar, dropping in for spot checks occasionally, and carefully inspecting the financial ledgers more than occasionally. With three boys underfoot, and another (girl, she hoped) due in less than a month, Anya was often overlooked when it came to rounding up the Scoobies for crisis research. Xander even pitched in more often than she.

It was only lucky coincidence that brought her into the middle of their research session that evening.

Giles had taken his work home with him. Researching at home ensured that he spent some time with his family at least. School's summer recess meant that, with the exception of Robin's training, the twins spent their days with Laura for the most part. When they were younger, they had spent their days with him, first at the Magic Box, then later as he reconstructed the Council. Nowadays he didn't have that luxury. He felt the guilt of a working parent.

Robin avoided him. After the failed attempt at doubles training, either she was upset with him for ruining it, or she was afraid that he was upset with her. She hung on her mother all evening, letting Buffy braid her hair and paint her nails. The pair of them whispered secrets back and forth, stifling giggles whenever he or Alex glanced their way.

Alex begged to help with the research. Ten was the traditional age at which watchers began their indoctrination into the Council. Giles vividly recalled his own father's lecture about sacrifice and responsibility as he crushed ten-year-old Giles' dreams for a future of his own choosing. Giles had promised Buffy their son would have a choice, and one day he would. But for today, the boy chose to play watcher beside his father quite happily.

The pair of them searched through stacks of books for any reference resembling the purple-eyed vampire-eater. Alex bubbled over with questions, in some ways slowing down their progress, although Giles answered patiently, proud of his son's inquisitive nature and sharp intelligence. Any volumes that were beyond Alex's ability to translate, he set aside for his father. The translations he could handle, he double-checked with his father for accuracy. Giles suspected Alex only did so for the approval his language mastery earned him.

The racket of Erik and Nick taunting each other announced their arrival before Xander's knock could. Buffy let them in, Anya making a beeline for the bathroom as her pregnancy demanded. Little Anders' eyes lit up when he saw the stacks of books, his little fingers scrunching and unscrunching repeatedly. He loved ripping pages out. All of his books were still plastic and indestructible. Xander grabbed him by the wrist before he could reach for any priceless and ancient volumes of demon lore.

"I brought these by for you to sign off on." Xander passed over a rolled-up set of blueprints for Giles' inspection. "For the new addition. The top one we'll file at the planning office. The bottom one includes all the special modifications. We'll keep that one under lock and key."

Giles unrolled them, but only gave each a cursory once over. He trusted Xander's expertise in these matters, and with good reason. The Council buildings finished so far had surpassed his expectations. He signed his name to both and returned them.

"Oww! Stop it!" Robin complained. "Mother, Nick's snapping rubber bands at me."

Anya returned at that moment and smacked the offending child upside the head.

Erik had slipped to Giles' other side so quietly, he hardly noticed. When he did notice, he wrapped one arm around the child fondly. He knew he shouldn't play favorites, but Erik was the least troublesome of Xander's boys.

"I'm hungry," Anya announced, pointedly in her husband's direction.

"Right, right. That was the other reason we stopped by. You guys wanna join us? We're taking the kids out for pizza, let 'em burn off some energy climbing through the tubes."

Anya's attention caught on Wesley's sketch of the demon, resting on top of the stack of books. She grabbed it for a closer look. "What's this?"

"That's what I want to know," Buffy replied. "Don't know if I should slay it or thank it. It's been out killing vampires for me the last couple nights. Stein's the only who's actually seen it so far." She nodded towards the sketch. "That's his description."

"Killing vampires?" Anya's tone sounded wary.

"Draining them, more precisely," Giles elaborated.

She tossed the sketch back to the table and nodded. "Drains vampires. Eyes turn purple during telepathy. Fades to mist at will."

Giles removed his glasses, leaning forward eagerly. "You know of this demon."

"The Vaurabyll."

Buffy had perked up as well. "So does he go on my naughty list or my nice list?"

"He shouldn't be on any list. He shouldn't be here at all. You're sure someone saw him _here_, in person, walking among us?"

"Even if Stein hadn't seen him, this demon doesn't exactly clean up after his meals. I saw one of the drained vamps myself."

Anya rubbed at her round belly as if the whole problem was giving her indigestion. "This is bad. _Apocalypse_ bad."

Xander rounded up their boys and recruited (bribed stealthily) Robin to take them upstairs. Anya never sheltered them, just as straightforward with the children as she was with anyone else. Xander did his best to smooth over the harsh realities of their evil-fighting lifestyle and provide some semblance of security to the boys. They were far too young to worry about the end of the world.

When the boys were squared away, Buffy got right to business. "Okay, the Vaurabyll. Give us the skinny."

"If you want prophecy, dependable prophecy, you open a window to their dimension and offer them a sacrifice of vampire blood."

"So they're the demon version of a Magic 8 ball," Xander joked.

Anya glared at him irritably and maneuvered herself into the chair Robin had vacated. "We're not talking your run-of-the-mill, average prophecies here. They're not dodgy fortune-tellers with a dozen versions of what-might-be. Vaurabyll prophecy has never been wrong. Never."

Xander gave a low whistle. A perfect track record for prophecy did seem to merit some kind of appreciation. As far as Giles knew, prophecies were common enough in the supernatural realm, but once armed with the knowledge they foretold, they were also commonly escaped. Cordelia herself had inherited such visions from the Powers That Be, visions which Angel Investigations routinely prevented from happening. Buffy herself had thwarted prophecy more times than he could count.

True, set-in-stone prophecy was a rarity that made you stand up and take notice. The Pergamum Codex had foretold Buffy's first death. Giles remembered reading the words, feeling the trap close around him, trying to impress upon Angel the gravitas of _this_ prophecy versus any other. The Codex was never wrong. Buffy's fate was _sealed_.

Anya's next words only confirmed his budding suspicions. "And it's not just demons that open a window and ask for a peek. Humans do it, too." She held Giles' gaze as she finished. "Once upon a time, even the watchers rendered unto the Vaurabyll."

"The Pergamum Codex," Giles breathed.

Anya only nodded.

"So these demons read the last page first and hand out spoilers to anyone who asks nicely," Buffy summarized, "and this is gonna end the world because…? Because no one likes to live out the rest of the movie if they already know how it ends?"

Anya shifted uncomfortably, one hand pressing against the top of her stomach, as if trying to force a persistent foot out from between her ribs. "Look, no one – demon or human – has ever been stupid enough to open a _door_. To let one of them out, let them cross into our world. It's never happened. A window, yes, but not a door. They were imprisoned in that dimension for a reason."

Alex, drawn in by the story, was the first to voice the question. "Why?"

Anya shrugged. "Before my time. All I know is that these demons shouldn't be here. Legend says they can unmake the world."

Before anyone could fire off more questions, Anya leveraged herself out of the chair and yelled loudly for the boys. "That's everything I know," she promised her attentive audience. "I never called on them myself. Personally, I wouldn't want to know my future. Not if I couldn't change it."

"Lottery numbers though," Xander quipped. "I'd be okay knowing lottery numbers."

"Food, Xander Harris, right now, or I predict a violent and sudden death in your immediate future."

"Right, right, eating for two." He faced Buffy and Giles, arms open wide, inviting. "I don't suppose the apocalypse waits for pizza? No? Right, well then, have fun with research. Call me when it's time to mount up or, you know, fix the damage after."

Xander gathered up the signed blueprints, rounded up his sons, and ushered his family outside. A quiet stillness followed in their wake. Another apocalypse to avert. Giles felt the weight of his years.

"I better patrol, track down our little fugitive psychic." Buffy stood, rolled her shoulders, and stretched her muscles. He could see the restless edge in her movements. He shouldn't have let his own temper rob her of her afternoon's training. She was wound tight with excess energy.

"I should patrol with you."

She waved him off. "Naw. You need to hit the books. Figure out what I'm supposed to do with this thing." She must have sensed his worry. Her recent preoccupation with final battles and watchers' diaries, Anya's discussion of inescapable fate, his memories of the Codex's prophecy, all placed the idea of Buffy's final battle front and center in his mind. He didn't want to let her out of his sight.

"Giles, I'm just gonna do recon. I won't engage this Vera-bell demon. And if he tries to read my fortune, I'll plug my ears and sing tra-la-la." She came over and knelt between his knees, looping her arms around his neck. "I don't need watcher backup tonight. I'll be careful. Promise."

He leaned forward and touched his forehead to hers. "I'll hold you to that."

And then she tipped her head up to press her lips against his. He deepened the kiss for a moment before the gagging sounds of the twins forced him to pull back, chagrined.

"Gross, huh?" Buffy wrestled Alex to the ground and peppered him with sloppy kisses while he writhed, giggling, beneath her.

He scrubbed each kiss away, protesting unconvincingly, "Mom! I'm not a baby! Stop it! I'm too old!"

Robin sidled up next to Giles, laid her head against his shoulder. Her eyes, however, were watching her mother. "Can I patrol with you?"

Giles' heart stopped.

Buffy seemed to take her seriously for a moment. "Hmmm… Let me think…" She tapped one finger against her mouth as if intently pondering the answer. "When I was your age did I go hunting vampires? Even half-dead vampires? Hmmm… Nope." She hopped to her feet and headed towards the weapons closet.

Robin shadowed her, wide blue eyes pleading. "Mother, _please_. I've been training for six months."

"You are not the Slayer," Giles reminded her tersely.

"Not yet," she threw back at him. Oh, yes, the girl was most definitely still holding a grudge from this afternoon, and she knew exactly how to sting him.

Why had he assumed his daughter would dread her destiny as much as he did? She loved her training, loved her mother's tales of adventure, and was impatient to begin her own adventures. At her age, even considering who her parents were, mortality did not yet register on her radar. She wanted to slip into the role of slayer much like any little girl wanted to slip into her mother's heels and jewels. Training with both her watcher and her parents must have seemed like the best of all possible worlds, and Giles had been the killjoy to her fantasy.

He supposed he should be comforted by the fact that she was so well adjusted in spite of everything. That if Fate meant to steal her choice, she could at least be happy with her lot. He and Buffy had done their best to prepare her, to balance her life with both normality and destiny. Now he couldn't help but wonder if they had unintentionally set her up for a fall.

She sulked on the bottom step when her mother left without her. When she realized finally that her pout would not move her father to relent (as it usually did) when it came to this issue, she stomped up the stairs to her room.

Alex flopped on the couch beside him. "Dad, can I help research?"

Giles smiled fondly and passed his son an appropriate volume. Heads bent together, they shared the work between them. Somehow, having his son step into the role of watcher did not bother him half as much as it once had. As long as Alex made the choice freely, Giles would have no reservations in providing the boy with a watcher's education. After all, this was not Travers' Council anymore. And Giles was not the man his father had been.

* * *

John coaxed his friend out of his office under duress. The one drawback to being a teacher and having his summers free was that no one else did. When his kids were young, it had been brilliant. Now he rattled around the empty house alone and lonely, waiting for April to get off shift. He had even considered teaching driver's ed for the high school summer session, except he wasn't _that_ bored.

There had been any number of previous summers when he could easily persuade Giles to play hooky for an afternoon or even a whole day. Usually the twins would tagalong, and sometimes John could even wrangle his grandson off his daughter for an outing. Jordan had a mild case of hero-worship for Alex.

Since the majority of the construction for this new academy had finished, and the students had started accumulating, Giles hardly had any freedom left. Caged in by his own noble dedication. Well, no one was indispensable. And John boldly pressed Giles' secretary to clear his schedule for lunch. He could spare time for lunch at least.

Considering the pinched look and wan pallor of his face as he emerged from his office, Giles definitely needed the break.

"I'm not taking no for an answer." John clapped him on the back and steered him out the front doors. By the way Giles squinted against the sun's glare, John guessed that he likely hadn't been outside since the impromptu pool party a few days ago. Definitely time for a break.

"So, do I get the tour first, Professor?"

"Tour?"

John twirled his hand in place to indicate the circle of buildings surrounding them. "Last time you showed me 'round, they'd just poured the foundations. Go on, give me the tuition tour."

"The what?"

"Pretend you want to recruit my little Jordan, get your hands on his tuition money. Impress me."

Giles seemed amused. "I assure you, it's not that kind of… academy." The last word left his mouth as if he'd never tasted its syllables before. John was reminded of his second graders sounding out new vocabulary words. But at least his friend had cracked a smile. The cloud of stress hanging over him had lifted.

"No tuition? You little philanthropist, you. So, tour?"

"Right." He pointed to each building in quick succession. "Administrative offices. Classrooms. Dormitories. Lab facilities. Library. Uhh… fitness center. Lunch?"

"What's that building?" John indicated the small, windowless structure he'd passed over.

Giles stared at him for a beat, as if taking his measure. "Prison cells."

John held a straight face for the span of one breath before he busted out laughing. Giles joined in, the two of them nearly doubled over. He smacked the other man on the arm. "Fine, don't give me the tour. But I'm starting to think you're running some sort of spy school or something."

Giles' laughter turned into a fit of coughing, and it took him a moment to catch his breath. By then, John was leading them to the car and tossing out suggestions for lunch.

They enjoyed their meal together. Giles certainly seemed more relaxed. They'd been given a booth in the far back, as if it had Giles' name on it. The waitress who took their order spoke very little English, and apparently for all the languages Giles knew, hers wasn't one of them. They ordered by number, and when the food came, it was spicy enough to make them both sweat.

When the check came, it brought a commotion with it. The cook ran out of the kitchen, shouting at their waitress. He had a hand pressed to his neck and looked panicked, but John couldn't understand what they were saying to each other.

From the kitchen came a clattering, then the sound of breaking dishes, followed by a shrill scream.

Giles was on his feet and heading towards the kitchen door. John was on his heels a moment later. They pushed through the swinging door and found the teenaged busboy holding a wild man at bay with little more than a frying pan. Unfortunately for them, the busboy was on the opposite side of the room, and his crazed attacker was between them.

At the sound of the door, the man turned to face the two new arrivals. John had never seen anything like it. Deformed in the face. His eyes were an unnatural yellow color. Must be special contacts. A fashion statement? Part of a gang? And then he actually, literally _growled_.

"John, get out of here. Clear the restaurant. Call Buffy."

"Without you? Hell no."

The busboy had already used his attacker's distraction to run out the alley door.

The deformed man staggered towards them. He seemed drunk, unsteady. And unnaturally pale. Was that blood down his chin?

Giles pulled something from his jacket pocket– a tent peg made from wood. John had never imagined him as a camper. The man enjoyed his creature comforts too much. But as weapons went, it hardly inspired fear. John lunged for a knife from the butcher's block on the sideboard. He grabbed for the biggest handle, hoping for the biggest blade.

Giles feinted at the crazy man, then jumped back out of reach. He tried a few more variations on the same theme, as if testing the guy's reflexes. John couldn't help but notice that he was also drawing the man away from him.

"Go," Giles demanded. "Call Buffy. Not dispatch. Buffy."

The man took a swing, and Giles ducked, coming up on the other side of the center island. The man shoved at the island counter, once, and it rocked, twice, and it tipped. He was stronger than he looked. Giles dove out of the way in the nick of time.

John tried to snag the man's attention, give Giles some breathing room, but his friend seemed to fancy himself James Bond. John had only been joking about the spy school. April had taught him some basic self-defense and taken him to the shooting range a few times, just in case, but as a second grade teacher, the worst violence he faced were six-year olds who liked to bite.

Speaking of biting, the deformed man smiled, and he was in serious need of a dentist. Those teeth would certainly leave a mark.

However well April had prepared him for such Good Samaritan antics, it appeared that Buffy had prepared Giles even better. Even armed with only a tent peg against a man who had the advantage in size and strength, not to mention the willingness to do great bodily harm, and Giles was still holding his own. And maneuvering the confrontation further away from John.

"Call Buffy."

John was torn. Calling in the professionals would be sensible. But leaving his friend alone with this lunatic would be unforgivable. If anything happened to Giles, Buffy would _kill_ him.

Giles had backed himself down the narrow pantry hallway, and now he was penned in. The crazed psycho advanced, still staggering drunkenly. Maybe he was high. John couldn't abandon his friend, couldn't just stand there watching either, he had to do _something_.

He was reluctant to use the knife in his hand unless he had no other choice. He had never harmed another human being before. Following the busboy's example, he reached for a frying pan and adjusted his grip like it was a tennis racket. Mushrooms and peppers and onions tumbled to the floor.

He stalked cautiously closer and swung, catching the man between the shoulder blades. The psycho stumbled, almost went down, but whatever drugs he was pumped up on allowed him to shake off the blow. He redirected his attention to John. Groggy, bleary-eyed, and growling once more, the psycho came at him.

Giles opened the freezer door. John understood his intention. He shoved, Giles pulled, and between them they wrestled the man into the walk-in freezer. Giles turned the lock and barricaded the door with a maintenance ladder.

John dropped both knife and frying pan. His hands were shaking now. Adrenaline. Delayed shock. He sucked in a few breaths. His heart was hammering. Is this what April felt? Quite a rush, no wonder she craved the danger.

"Are you alright?" Giles was checking him over, unusually unruffled by their adventure.

"Right. Next time I pick the restaurant." That earned him a chuckle and an affectionate shoulder pat. He plucked the wooden tent peg from Giles' fingers and gave it a bemused inspection. "And what the hell did you think you were going to do with _this_, Professor Bond?"

He heard the sirens. Someone had managed to call in the cavalry, possibly their waitress or the cook. John was grateful to step aside, but Giles swore under his breath when he heard the familiar wailing.

"Go. See who they sent," he ordered. "If it's Buffy, send her back here. If it's not, don't tell them about the man in the freezer. Keep them busy until Buffy gets here." He took back the tent peg. Good luck charm maybe? Hardly a useful weapon. He'd be better off with a can of mace.

"Look, I know both our wives are cops, but they don't give out badges by proxy. We've done enough. Let them do their jobs."

"John, please, you need to trust me." Giles was fishing out a cell phone from his pocket. Apparently, sending John to call for help had merely been a clever ruse to get rid of him. Possibly sending him to delay the cops was another one.

John crossed his arms, eyeing his friend warily. This was a side of Giles he had never seen before: completely in command, so very much like April on duty. "What the hell is going on?"

But he had already connected with Buffy apparently, and John gathered from the one-sided conversation that she was now en route. Giles headed towards the dining area as he snapped the phone shut and waylaid the officers before they could investigate the kitchen. John watched at a slight distance as Giles handled the officers, as he in fact lied to them. John trusted his friend enough to keep silent for the moment. Knowing that April would arrive with Buffy helped relieve his apprehension. She would be able to size up the situation better than he. He would defer to her judgment.

When April and Buffy arrived, the responding officers left. They had already sorted out the other restaurant patrons and staff. Apparently, the cook had been injured, his hands pressing against a wound in his neck. He was woozy on his feet, and he had been taken from the scene by ambulance.

Just the four of them remaining, plus the man madly thumping against the freezer door in the back room. This probably went against every regulation, their wives taking their statements. Considering that Giles had already lied to the responding officers, John didn't think he was overly concerned with regulations.

"In the middle of the day?" Buffy asked, the moment they were alone.

"He's mad with starvation. Half-drained, I should think."

"Only half?"

Giles led them back to the scene of the crime, so to speak. April surveyed the damage wrought on the kitchen and turned worried eyes in her husband's direction. John waved off her concern, far more interested in her reaction to Giles', and now Buffy's, odd behavior.

Another thump echoed in the closed space, and they all jumped.

"I thought there'd be less thumping, and more… wafting," Buffy complained enigmatically.

"And destroy the only clue we have at the moment?"

"Fair enough."

Buffy picked her way across the floor, stepping over broken plates and overturned pots. April shadowed a step behind her, hand hovering over her sidearm.

"He's all base instinct at this point," Giles warned. "Capture, not kill."

"Yeah, yeah."

_Kill_? John studied his friend curiously. Former museum curator, librarian, shop owner, and current University founder. When had his mild mannered friend turned into this mysterious stranger? _Kill_?

He almost missed Buffy's clever misdirection, by which she slipped through the freezer door and ditched April behind her. April yanked on the door handle, trying to leverage it with her shoulder, desperate to provide backup to her partner. The sounds of a struggle replaced the previous thumping. Then silence. The entire skirmish had lasted only moments. And when the door opened, it was Buffy who was standing there victorious, the psycho unconscious and handcuffed at her feet.

April knelt and reached one hand towards the deformed ridges of the man's skull. "My God, I've never…"

John's eyes drifted back and forth between Giles and Buffy. They were having a silent dialogue between them. And they were entirely too unphased. Buffy was a cop, sure, but even April was taken aback by the man's weird appearance.

"What the hell is going on?" he asked the pair of them.

Buffy squirmed and bit her lip. "I don't suppose you'd believe government experiment gone awry?"

"Plastic surgery fetish?" Giles tossed out.

"Radioactive spider bite?"

"High on PCP?"

"Elephant man?"

"Yet another cautionary tale in support of helmet usage?"

"The aliens have landed?"

"Genetic throwback to the Neanderthals?"

"Deliverance-scale inbreeding?" Buffy hummed the movie's famous banjo duel, tapering off as April stood and faced her, betrayal writ across her face.

She shook her head, clearly not buying their ridiculous explanations. The scar marking the curve of her jawline stood out in white contrast to the red flush of anger in her cheeks. She had gained the scar in the confrontation that had killed her last partner and paired her with Buffy. "I've worked with you for the last seven years. I put my life in your hands every day. What secrets have you been keeping from me?"

Another silent dialogue passed between Buffy and Giles.

Buffy broke the silence first. "It's time they knew."

Giles nodded, then dropped his eyes and bowed his head. He seemed defeated by that.

"I'm the Slayer."

John heard the capital letter in that statement, not a description, but a title. His stomach plummeted to his toes. The title sounded like something the papers would dub a serial killer. The Hillside Strangler. The Zodiac Killer. The Unabomber. _The Slayer_. It had the same sort of ring to it.

Except that he trusted them both. He knew them. Or at least, he had thought he did.

April had the same doubt and hesitation on her face. "The Slayer?" She kept her hand subtly near to her sidearm.

Buffy looked helplessly towards Giles. "You wanna give them the speech? You like giving the speech."

"The speech?"

"You know, the speech: 'This world is older than you know… wasn't always a paradise… demons once walked among us…' Or the other one: 'Into each generation a slayer is born, one girl in all the world, a chosen one…' The speech."

"You seem to have hit the salient points."

The deformed man began to stir, and Buffy bashed him once across the back of his skull. He fell silent again.

"Buffy!" April was horrified, and frankly, so was John. Such callous brutality was not something he would have ever expected from Buffy.

She pointed at the unconscious man cuffed at her feet with a sneer of contempt. "That's a vampire. I'm a vampire slayer. And Giles is my Watcher." He could hear the capital letter in Giles' title as well.

"Watcher?" April echoed.

"I train her and support her."

"You do know how crazy this sounds, right?" John ran his fingers through his hair. He imagined he would find quite a bit more grey peppered through it come morning.

"You don't expect us to believe this?" April seconded.

Buffy shrugged. "I'd give you a demonstration, but we need this vamp to hopefully stop an apocalypse."

"Apocalypse!" they repeated in unison.

"We need to get this guy back to HQ before he wakes up again." Buffy spied a pile of tablecloths waiting to be laundered and grabbed a few to wrap the so-called vampire in. John gasped as she hefted the guy over her shoulder like he weighed nothing. "Come with. We're telling the truth, and we'll prove it. I swear, you're gonna believe us." A beat. "I hope."

Giles leaned towards John and murmured softly, "Looks like you'll get that tour after all."

* * *

Willow came. Xander put in a token appearance as well. Whatever they could do to smooth things over for John and April. They did it out of friendship, but Giles was painfully aware of the possibility that if they couldn't persuade April to their side, she could make things complicated with the legal authorities. Once upon a time, the Council would have vanquished any bureaucracy with the stroke of a pen. But Giles had yet to establish the same level of influence.

They shackled the half-drained vampire in one of the containment cells in the windowless prison house. April inspected her surroundings with a careful and suspicious eye, attentive and alert. Her hand never strayed far from her holster.

John took in everything in a kind of daze, refusing to even look in Giles' direction. Giles felt the ache of loss squeezing his chest until he could hardly breathe.

Willow revealed her magic skills as further evidence. Floating a pen around the room, summoning a small orb of light, small glamours that changed her hair color. The last she did mostly because she was enjoying showing off.

Xander confessed that he had married an eleven-hundred-odd-year old ex-demon and had been fighting evil since sophomore year of high school.

Buffy showed them her training room and demonstrated some of her more dramatic slayer skills. They finished with a quick circuit of the other training rooms, dropping in on any watchers who were in the middle of training sessions with their potential slayers.

Giles, for his part, gave them the same tour he gave each watcher candidate, and the same lecture.

They finished at the Council Library, Buffy and Giles almost holding their breath as they awaited the verdict. April browsed some of the stacks of books, fingers tracing over the titles on the spines. She had relaxed over the course of the tour. Her hand had dropped away from her sidearm. She was overflowing with questions, eyes bright with curiosity and wonder. Behind those eyes, the wheels were turning; she was making connections. As a cop in Sunnydale, she had to have witnessed things that had no explanation at the time. She had to be assembling the pieces of all those separate puzzles into the cohesive whole that corroborated their story. In all likelihood, she was imagining how she could fit into their evil-fighting gang.

John looked sick. That, in turn, made Giles' stomach turn. He had treasured this friendship. For them to fall out would be a harsh blow. John was the only friend he had in this country he counted as solely _his_ friend. The others would always be Buffy's first. Ethan would always be too untrustworthy for unguarded company. And the other watchers would always be too aware of the uneven power dynamic between Giles and them for any kind of real relationships.

April nodded, mind made up, and threw her proverbial hat in the ring. She joined the other Scoobies at the center table, and they briefed her on the current threat: the purple-eyed prophetic demon with the alleged power to unmake the world.

John wandered off by himself, drawn to a reading nook with a large picture window overlooking the center courtyard. Giles followed, trying to feel out whether his approach would be welcomed or spurned.

"It's a lot to take in," he offered sympathetically.

"April seems to be taking it in just fine." John's eyes never left the view of the courtyard, fixed intently as if counting each blade of grass. The sunlight washed out whatever color was left in his face. He looked like a ghost.

"Yes, well, she's… remarkably adaptable."

John's quiet reflection reminded Giles of Olivia's final visit, when the realities of his life had overwhelmed her. _Too scary_? he'd asked her. Though her words had claimed indecision, her tone had held certainty. Why should John be any different?

"What must I have looked like to you?" His voice was barely above a whisper. "Naïve fool? Stupid schoolteacher?"

"No. No, of course not. John, I—"

"All the things she… All the years April served, she never protected me, never lied to me, like I couldn't handle it."

Giles swallowed hard. He had read his friend wrong. Apparently the monsters didn't bother him half so much as the secrecy.

"I thought you understood. I thought we were cut from the same cloth. Both our wives – cops. Partners, even. I thought that we, of all people, could be honest with each other." He turned his head to meet Giles' eyes then, and his expression was cold, not terrified as Giles had originally assumed. "Did it amuse you? Having a friend so completely in the dark? Did I give you a good laugh?"

"It was never like that. I never—"

John barked out a laugh of his own and rolled his eyes skyward. "Professor Bond. I thought I was being clever. Huh. C'mon, now. All our conversations over the years. Knowing what I know now. Even I have to admit the comic irony ran high. I must have been good for at least a chuckle every now and then."

"You were never a joke. Not to any of us."

"A child, then, who couldn't hack the big, scary truth. Even this afternoon. You did everything you could to get me out of that kitchen. And I was under the illusion that I had your back."

Giles could feel their friendship slipping through his fingers. "Keeping both of you in the dark, it wasn't a joke or a game. And it certainly wasn't because I thought less of you or doubted your ability to handle it. If anything, I was being selfish. You don't know what it meant to me to have one piece of my life that was untouched by all of this. I value our friendship a great deal. You have to believe—"

"I don't know what to believe. I don't know who you really are anymore."

"I'm the same man I was before. Just… under more pressure. And just maybe… even more in need of a good friend."

John turned and walked away, hands stuffed deep in his trouser pockets, and rejoined April at the center conference table.

Giles was left standing alone.

* * *

Buffy watched the thing mindlessly struggle against his shackles and wanted nothing more than to stake it. Willow, on the other hand –

"I wonder what blood volume is required for higher brain functions? Or do they come back piecemeal? Like first language, then host memory, then vampire memory? Ooo… maybe… Do you suppose there's a blood volume where the demon is suppressed and only the host is aware?"

– wanted to run the thing through mazes and show it inkblots.

"Seems to me a vampire gets _more_ demony, the hungrier it gets." Buffy wrinkled her nose as the thing charged the cell bars, and then snapped back at the end of his chains. It roared.

"Crankypants! Behave, or no blood for you." Willow wiggled a packet of blood in front of the bars. The vampire growled and charged the bars once more.

"So they're not usually like this?" April clarified. She remained a step behind Buffy and Willow, still understandably skittish around vampires, even properly restrained ones. She kept one hand close to her firearm, out of instinct. They'd already explained that you couldn't kill a vampire with a bullet. Wooden stake to the heart, beheading, fire, sunlight, enough holy water. Crosses burned, but didn't kill. She'd had the full briefing, but she still depended on her gun to feel safe. Understandable. Trained as a cop, not a slayer. Personally, Buffy had never drawn her own gun except in target practice.

"Typically, they reveal the inner demon only when they feed." Giles slipped into his usual role of lecturer. Since John had left after the tour, white-faced and shaken, Giles had gone into detached computer-mode. Knowledge guy. Research man. Repressed watcher.

"Feed, fight, f—"

Giles glared at her.

"Fraternize," Buffy finished smoothly with a winning grin at her watcher.

"Otherwise," Giles continued as if he hadn't been interrupted, "they retain the human face of their victim. You wouldn't necessarily recognize a vampire."

"Take Spike for instance," Buffy pointed out. "He can even pass for a decent guy. And I can't believe I just admitted that."

Xander patted her on the shoulder. "We won't tell."

"Spike? Dawn's Spike?" April looked at each one of them in turn, as if they were joking.

"The heart wants what it wants," Xander explained. "Says the man who married an ex-vengeance demon."

"Spike is… complicated," Giles supplied. "Sufficed to say, he can no longer harm any living thing, and the experience has… reformed… him."

"So they can be reformed? But you just kill them? Without trying?"

Buffy couldn't meet her partner's eyes. Memories, clear as yesterday, flooded her mind. Memories of Angelus, and her own reluctance to kill him. Giles had paid for her hesitation, in Jenny's blood and his own.

"It is extremely rare. As far as I know, it has happened only twice." Giles stepped in with the dry facts. Dry facts were his security blanket in times of emotional stress, and in his buttoned-up demeanor, she recognized how bothered he was by John's cold withdrawal. "You must understand that the person they once were is dead. The soul has passed on. They are only a demon wearing their victim's face."

"What about Spike?"

"I have no explanation for Spike. Being unable to kill, he was forced to change allegiances, allied himself with us out of sheer self-preservation, and as a consequence forged different emotional attachments. He would claim it was love that reformed him, first for Buffy and then for Dawn."

"And the other one? The second example of reformed vampire?"

"Angel." Buffy told the story, to save Giles from doing so. "He was cursed and got his soul back. But that means he can't ever be happy.

"Look, April, vampires are evil. We can't save them. They're gonna kill people or worse. So it's my job to dust them. If I were turned into a vampire, I'd want someone to dust me. That goes for everyone here." The others nodded in agreement. "This isn't human justice. I'm the Slayer. I'm the law when it comes to this stuff."

April backed down, but Buffy wasn't entirely sure if she'd completely accepted it yet.

"Guys," Willow called for their attention. She'd been busy tossing packets of blood into the cell while everyone else discussed the merits of vampire rehab. "He's getting calmer. I think it's working."

They all took a step closer. She teased him with another packet, dangled just out of reach. "Hey, big guy, can you tell us who sucked you almost dry?"

He grunted and grabbed for the blood.

"Think he's still zombified," Xander mused.

"Maybe he was stupid when he was alive," Buffy added. "Maybe this is as good as he'll get."

Willow flipped him the packet, and he sank his teeth into it, sucking it down in record time. When he'd finished, she tempted him with another. "Tell us who did this to you, and you'll get all the blood you want."

"Girl," he growled out. It was the first word he'd spoken, but it was barely articulate.

"A girl?" Willow clarified, trading glances with Giles. "You're sure?"

His head bobbed up and down, eyes fixated on the packet of blood just beyond his reach. He was coherent enough now that he didn't strain pointlessly to reach it, just waited.

Willow tossed him the packet, and waited with the next. It was almost like when they'd taken Leaky to obedience training and rewarded him with treats after each successful command. With that memory, Buffy felt a stab of loss. Poor Leaky had been gone less than a week. She blinked away tears quickly, embarrassed to be choked up over a dog she hadn't even wanted in the first place, a dog Giles had brought home without consulting her, just so he could win favor with the twins. Brave little guard dog had kept a vampire at bay long enough for the twins to escape inside the house. She turned her head and wiped away a wayward tear.

Willow bribed the vampire with the next packet. "Describe this girl."

"Girl," he repeated. He angled his hand to indicate her height. Maybe three feet. "Blonde." He mimed pigtails to either side of his face. He pointed to his own yellow eyes. "Purple."

Purple eyes clinched it. Another demon like the one Stein had seen. A child, from the sound of it. If one should not exist in this world, what would Anya say about two? And if a child demon could do this to a vampire, what exactly was Buffy up against?

Willow rewarded him with blood, and this time after he'd fed, his vampire face smoothed out to human. His yellow eyes darkened to brown. April jumped back in surprise.

His eyes tilted up to focus on Buffy now, forgetting for the moment the hand that fed him. "Slayer."

She crossed her arms and stood straighter. "It's always nice to have a fan club."

"You're asking the wrong question." His diction had improved markedly with the last batch of blood.

"Okay, I'll play along. What's the right question?"

"Why was I spared?"

Buffy arched one brow. "Survey says…?"

"I am to bring you to your fall, Slayer."

He smiled, and Buffy shivered. Maybe she had been reading too many watchers' diaries, had been dwelling too much on final battles, but she couldn't stop herself from remembering Anya's words: _Vaurabyll prophecy has never been wrong._

The vampire drew himself up to his full height, eyes never leaving hers. "As they have said, so shall it be."

* * *

"All in favor of immediate staking?" Xander raised his hand, looking to the others for an expected unanimous vote.

They had retreated to the Library, joined by Wesley and Stein, all the watchers buried in research, while Buffy, Xander, and April brainstormed battle plans.

"And if I'd killed the Anointed One, how would I have found the Master? We might need him. Possible apocalypse still looming, remember?"

"How is it we can't find a single reference to the Vaurabyll?" Wesley was practically pulling his hair out in frustration.

"Well, the Pergamum Codex was lost in the 15th century and only recently recovered. If the Codex did indeed come from the Vaurabyll," Giles speculated, "it's possible that any accompanying text was lost with it. If we knew where Angel had obtained the Codex…"

"I'll have Spike get right on it," Willow volunteered. Off everyone else's puzzled looks, she smiled sheepishly. "He likes getting bossy with Angel."

"Yes, well, this time," Giles said, "perhaps we can forgo the middleman."

Laura delivered Robin for her training, Alex tagging along and eager to dive into the research. Wesley departed with Robin for their regular session. April decided she should return to base and log the pair of them out for the day. She promised to finish off their paperwork and cover for Buffy if she needed to miss the next day too. The rest of them (Giles, Willow, Stein, and Xander) stayed and researched, Alex fetching and re-shelving books as their aide.

Buffy waited only as long as wouldn't be suspicious, then she slipped out of the library on her own private mission.

Technically, she wasn't breaking any rules. Giles had only insisted that she not train with Wesley. She would obey that to the letter. But he never outlawed attending Robin's sessions. Other parents took their kids to gymnastics and little league and sat in the bleachers with pennants, cheering on their kids. They weren't quite like those other families, but unlike Giles, Buffy could be supportive when it came to this.

If her daughter was going to end up becoming the Slayer, then Buffy would do everything she could to make it easier. And if Robin enjoyed her training, Buffy would rally behind her, hoot and holler, and show pride in her accomplishments. She wouldn't get a letterman jacket for her sport, but maybe one day a glittery toy umbrella and the gratitude of her peers.

Robin had a one-woman cheering section as she faced off against Wesley in hand-to-hand. He was teaching her Aikido, a discipline that evened the odds when one's enemy had the advantage. He showed her how to use her opponent's strength against them, how to redirect their momentum without expending much energy herself. A clever dance of constantly shifting angles, and Robin took to it like a fish to water.

As Buffy watched, she understood why Giles had forbidden her from training with Wesley. The knowledge Wesley imparted to his charge was chosen specifically for Robin. With her strengths and weaknesses in mind, he taught her the skills that best served her. Giles had never taught Buffy Aikido, and he likely never would. Maybe if she asked. But it didn't really suit her. Her fighting style was more aggressive, spontaneous. She usually came at her enemies and put them on the defensive.

Buffy stuck two fingers in her mouth and gave a loud piercing whistle when Robin managed to send Wesley to the mat. She gave a little bow, and he rolled his eyes, challenging her to do it again. She did it once more before the session was out, and although Wesley had put her to the mat more than a dozen times, she beamed pride for her two victories.

"Mother, did you see that?" she gushed, bouncing straight over the moment Wesley called a halt for the day.

"I sure did. You'll give me a run for my money before long. Now, go thank your Watcher for your training and help him put away the gear."

The puzzled look on Wesley's face clearly indicated that he couldn't remember _Buffy_ ever thanking him or helping clean up when he'd been _her_ Watcher, nor could he imagine her doing the same for Giles. And he was right. But with age, came wisdom. And Buffy thought she should teach Robin to demonstrate a little more appreciation and respect for her watcher than Buffy had shown for hers. Maybe then Robin wouldn't end up blowing him off for a year to go play with the commandos while he drank himself into a perpetual state of self-pity until he eventually decided to call it quits and head back to England. Or something like that. Maybe she was just trying to raise her daughter to be polite, always "please" and "thank you." Joyce had tried with both Buffy and Dawn, and everyone knew how that turned out.

Wesley smiled as Robin helped spray off all their protective padding and tuck it away in the appropriate storage lockers. She helped him clean and put away the mat. She thanked him dutifully, and then dashed over to her mother, overflowing with boundless energy. If Buffy hadn't been the Slayer, she couldn't have hoped to keep up with her children's youthful vigor. She didn't know how Giles managed.

Speaking of… They bumped into him on the way out. He'd been tracking Buffy down for her own training, and his expression darkened as he guessed at her activities.

"No training," she promised him. "Just cheerleading."

Robin tugged on his sleeve. "Father, guess what – I put Wesley to the mat twice!"

He praised her half-heartedly, and then pulled her in for an earnest hug. Buffy noticed the pain that flashed across his face as he squeezed his daughter tight, laying his hand tenderly against the nape of her neck, his eyelids fluttering closed. Robin pulled away first, and he released her, his previous sorrow swallowed back and a warm smile on his lips.

"So," Buffy ventured once they were alone, looping an arm through his and leading them both towards her more hard-core training room. "Any leads on getting rid of the purple-eyed pests – either by slaying or banishing?"

He shook his head. "We'll work on your speed and dexterity today. There's a chance that you could strike a blow, if you're fast enough to hit before they turn to mist."

"But there's two of them now. Apparently."

"Yes, well, you'll need to take them out one at a time. Decapitation is the most universally effective. Barring any new information—"

"Swords it is."

He pushed her hard, almost punishing her. As if he'd caught her in watcher adultery with Wesley. She'd told him they hadn't trained. Did he not believe her? Or maybe he blamed her in some way for scaring John off, not good enough at playing secret identity. Or maybe this was about Robin. He resented Buffy for giving him a daughter who would become the Slayer, damning him to losing both of them. Or maybe she was just the stand-in for Fate, as he railed against prophecy and destiny.

The vampire's words echoed in her mind with each clash of their blades. _I am to bring you to your fall, Slayer._

When Giles was panting and out of breath, he would take a break, recover, sip water, and blot the sweat from his skin. He allowed Buffy no break. He demanded drills, calling out corrections, chastising her speed, snapping at her should her form turn sloppy. After he'd rested, he would resume their sparring, using every weakness he knew against her. The fury in his strokes was breathtaking.

He forced her on past their usual end-time, and now with no end in sight, she didn't know how long even her slayer stamina could keep up the pace he'd set. His energy was nowhere near flagging, not with the frequent breaks he gave himself. And her sword arm was aflame with strain, sweat down her face, heart racing, breathing rapid.

At twice the length of any previous training session, he continued their sparring once more, freshly rested and merciless with his sword.

She shoved him back, sent him stumbling several steps, although he regained his balance before he could fall. She deliberately held her sword to the side and released it, clanging to the ground. "Enough!" Whatever he was trying to get out of his system, she was done being his punching bag.

Two strides, and the point of his sword was pressed to the hollow of her neck. "You're dead." He flipped up his faceguard, and she saw not anger in his eyes, but desperation.

"You're dead," he repeated. "Because you _quit_."

He forced her back by the point of his sword until she felt the wall flush with her back. "You're dead. Because you gave up before your opponent. Because you thought the outcome was already decided. Written in stone."

_Because you wanted it._ Spike's words from long ago echoed back to her: _Every Slayer has a death wish._

Giles hurled his sword across the room with reckless abandon, and it slid end over end until crashing against the far wall. He pressed her to the wall now with his hands to her neck and the steel of his gaze. "Bugger prophecy. You fight, Buffy, you fight to come home to us. You don't stop fighting."

His lips crushed hers, and she could taste the salt of his sweat, smell the musk of his exertions. His hands were bruising as they claimed her. Slayer and Watcher waged a different battle between them. She rolled them both to pin him against the wall, rising to the challenge, damned if she was going to let him win _this_ match.

He was rising to the challenge as well.

He took advantage of her slayer strength, as rough with her as he had ever been. She in turn marked him with her teeth, wrestled a groan from his lips with her hands down his pants, and punished him, partly for the grueling session he'd just forced her to endure, but mostly for calling her a quitter.

She was determined that, in this match, he would be the one to beg, "Enough!"

She restrained his hands and went down to her knees. She teased him out to the limit of his stamina as he had done with her moments before. Then she returned to his mouth, swallowing his moans of frustration with her kiss.

She had the advantage in strength and stamina (although, in regard to the latter, he had burned out most of their inequity during her training), but he had years of experience, expert training, and the leverage of his height and mass as his assets. He escaped her hold and put her to the mat.

_Score one for Giles_, she thought, laughing.

They tangled, each trying to get the upper hand, and were it not for the protective padding and clothes slowly shed across the mat in their wake, Buffy wouldn't have been sure if they were sparring for real or only as a euphemism.

He took her from behind, and she gave in, quitter after all. She arched into his touch, both of them slick with sweat from training, both of them still breathless and pumped full of adrenaline from swordplay. His forehead pressed to the nape of her neck, each exhale sending shivers down her spine, he set the pace, and she yielded the match.

"Say you don't believe in prophecy," he demanded.

"I don't," she rasped, too lost in sensation to voice more.

"Say it," he ground out fiercely, halting their cadence so abruptly she whimpered.

"I don't believe in prophecy," she groaned.

"Again," he begged, resuming their tempo.

"Prophecies suck." The words were harder to choke out. She was so close.

"Because…" He prompted, as he increased the pace.

"Wrong, so wrong." The only answer she could manage.

"Again." Their rhythm escalated to a frenzied pitch of desperation.

"Never… come… true," she promised him. Her words gave him the victory he had been seeking, and he shuddered, then collapsed against her. She wept, because the words had tasted like lies on her tongue. She turned her face away from his kiss, afraid that he would taste them too.

"Shhh," he soothed her, gentle now, his touch tender as his fingers sought to bring her to her own victory. Stalwart champion, his life's mission to ensure she always achieved her victory.

* * *

The children's faces were each wet with tears as Buffy tucked them in for the night. She worried they had overheard too much about the looming apocalypse. Alex especially, with all the research Giles had permitted him to help with. Too much on their shoulders, too young. Buffy could relate, except that she had had five more years than this before destiny dropped the slayer bomb on her.

Thankfully, their sadness was more mundane.

"I miss Leaky," they admitted separately, in their own words.

They had spied a neighbor walking a dog, and it had driven home the reality that they would never walk Leaky again.

Buffy kissed them each in turn, and repeated the promise for each of them, the same promise Giles had made her after her mother's death, "It will get better."

She thought she had wiped away all trace of her tears when she came downstairs, but Giles' attention to detail zeroed in on the trails they had left in her makeup.

She shrugged off his concern, embarrassed to admit what she was crying about. "The kids are missing Leaky. No more walkies… No more throwing the tennis ball… No more begging at the…" She choked up before she could get the last word out and started crying in earnest. He pulled her into his arms, and she tried to resist, protesting, "It's silly."

"No, it's not," he countered, and she melted against him. "Honestly, I miss him too. I've grown so accustomed to him sleeping under my feet, every time I get up from a chair, I still take care not to step on him." She heard the rough edge of emotion in his voice, and it surprised her. "You never had a pet before, Buffy, but it's typical that they should become part of the family. And grieved for when they're gone."

"Should we have put the twins through that? Maybe we shouldn't have gotten them a dog."

"Loss is a lesson everyone must learn. They'll get past it. In time."

* * *

The demon waited for dawn to break, resigned. Nothing had changed. He had started the new day full of hope, certain that his beloved would be waiting for him, would be restored to him.

If anything, time had solidified around him, the ripples smoothing out, and he was trapped as if in amber. Slave to Fate evermore. The Vaurabyll were cursed, no matter which side of the divide they walked.

Now as he waited for the dawn, he had only one thing left to live for.

* * *

Giles woke first. As always. Slayers, by necessity, did not hold to "early to bed, early to rise." Watchers often needed to keep such hours, too, but that did not mean they were inherently night owls. He had always been an early riser, when given the chance.

Buffy had twisted the sheets around them both at some point in the night and made herself comfortable across his chest.

Untangling himself from both her and the sheets without disturbing her demonstrated an impressive amount of patience, stealth, and reverse engineering.

He should have stayed in bed, waited for her sleepy morning grin, and made love to her.

* * *

At breakfast, the twins were just as melancholy about Leaky as the night before.

Stein called with urgent news.

Buffy yawned and stretched as she appeared beside the twins and poured herself a bowl of cereal. He kissed her cheek as he passed, and she waved him goodbye, mouth too full of Cheerios to say a word.

He should have stayed with his family, helped Buffy to cheer up their children, and wore the hat of husband and father rather than that of watcher.

* * *

Fred had driven down from LA with some alarming charts and graphs and a spinning metal cage that fascinated Stein. Her latest experiment had unexpectedly soured that morning, and she and Stein traded physics jargon that escalated into a full-blown argument between them. Fred's voice pitched higher and her words tumbled out faster as she grew more animated, supplementing her dialogue with a constant flurry of hand gestures. Stein's voice rose in volume, but deepened in pitch, and he crossed his arms, growing more still as he defended his own hypothesis.

Not speaking their language, nor understanding the significance of the numbers they tossed out, or the calculations they each scribbled and erased on the board, Giles had to wait for them to interpret.

"Ya'll have had some weird weather, haven't ya? Rain four nights in a row? 'Ccording to this—" She petted her metal gadget with affection. "—there's a direct correlation."

He polished his glasses, peered through the lenses, and then gave them a second cleaning.

"Everything contains the energy of its source." Stein had finally remembered he was there and tried to explain their quandary.

"The demon that shouldn't be in our dimension." Giles understood now the general topic being analyzed.

"Exactly. Typically, even energy from another dimension doesn't resonate so differently from ours as to be incompatible."

Winifred jumped in eagerly, one finger shoving the bridge of her glasses higher up on her nose. "Else I wouldn't be here. Back and forth from cow-slave dimension and here. But this critter you got here, his energy's like oil and water. Or more like picric acid and sodium hydroxide. You gotta kill him or send him back before—" She mimed an explosion with her hands and made the accompanying sound effect.

He measured Stein's reaction, wondering at the two physicists' earlier disagreement. "You don't concur?"

"We agree on the basics."

Fred shrugged her shoulders sheepishly. "Just the size of the kaboom we're fussing over. He reckons California'll slide off into the ocean. I ain't sure it won't be bigger. Pro'bly fracture the wall between both worlds like glass, and when everything starts spillin' over, one t'other—" She mimed another explosion, bigger than the last, and widened her eyes to stress the seriousness of her forecast.

"We're running out of time. The energy levels are off the scale this morning. Maybe because there's two of them. Maybe they're even breeding. We kill the demons or send them back today, or we don't see tomorrow."

"You're gonna get a big storm tonight, yes sirree."

He should have insisted they give him a third option, one that didn't require he send Buffy into battle, unprepared.

* * *

He fetched Buffy and left the twins in Laura's care. Robin tugged on her mother's sleeve and begged to come along. Alex echoed the same plea to his father. It broke his heart to turn them both away, but they were too young to face down an impending apocalypse.

He should have noticed the defiant glint in his daughter's eyes, the same blue eyes as her mother, and the same expression as his slayer had worn before.

* * *

When Buffy went home after dinner to check on the twins, it looked like monsoon season. Rivers of water ran through the streets, too heavy a downpour for the ground to soak and the gutters to take all at once. She called him from home on her cell phone to tell him the power was out and the trees were banging against the upstairs windows. She'd shut the shutters and wondered if there was anything else, home-maintenance-wise, she should do before returning.

He should have made sure she hugged both son and daughter, told them she loved them, and kissed them both hard enough to prove it. But she was the Slayer. She probably did that anyway.

* * *

"This is ridiculous, Giles!" She slammed closed the book he was reading. "We both know there's a better way to find these demons. We got ourselves a tour guide in lockup, and we don't have time to be picky. Getting close to sunset."

He should have refused her plan, come up with a better one himself, and left that vampire to starve in its cell.

* * *

Buffy turned the lock and freed the vampire. "Wanna bring me to my fall, better start with the bringing."

Giles kept his crossbow trained on the vampire who had cost him his friendship with John, who might still cost him his Slayer.

The vampire didn't give the weapon even a first glance. He tilted his head and smiled, as if at a private joke. "Watcher. They gave me your fortune, too. Do you want to hear it?"

"No."

He pressed his chest against the lathe of Giles' crossbow, the stock lined up with his heart almost in challenge, and lowered his voice so as not to carry even the few feet to Buffy.

"You will let her fall."

He should have pulled the trigger, put a bolt through him, and dusted the cocky pillock right there.

* * *

Buffy kissed him once, for luck, before she charged off, sword ready.

He should have pulled her back for a second kiss, told her he loved her, and never let go.

* * *

_Vaurabyll prophecy has never been wrong. Never._

_I am to bring you to your fall, Slayer. As they have said, so shall it be._

_You're dead. Because you thought the outcome was already decided. Written in stone._

_Loss is a lesson everyone must learn._

_You will let her fall._

* * *

If you want the tale of Buffy Anne Summers Giles' final battle, there is only one who can tell it: Rupert Giles, her Watcher.

But it is as lost to him as it is to history. His diary will record nothing more than the date of her passing. If he owes future watchers and slayers a more detailed account, it is a debt that will remain unpaid.

He honestly can't remember.

Like a bleeding wound in his memory, his mind has scabbed over the experience. His watcher's perfect recall has failed him. Or perhaps, this time it has saved him.

Either way, the pages of his diary are blank.

* * *

Giles stopped at the porch as if the world paused in its spinning orbit beneath his feet. The turn of the earth stuck on this moment, and he could not go forward. Every watcher came home alone eventually, and he was no different, no better than all the watchers who had come before him, now a cautionary tale to all those who would come after. He could not go back and save her, but neither could he go forward into their home without her. Time itself paused. His world stopped.

The door opened on its own. Laura waiting. Tears glittering in her eyes. Sympathetic tilt to her head. Someone had called her. Warned her. She took his choice away from him. Forced the world to spin beneath him. Hand to his elbow, she reminded him to keep moving forward. God only knew what reminded his heart to keep beating, his lungs to keep breathing.

She gave Robin a hug, and he dismissed his on-call sitter, knowing he would never call on her again. Couldn't suffer to look on the woman who had forced him to walk through that door alone.

Alex stood at the landing. Laura wouldn't have told him, would have left that to Giles. But he was a clever boy. He didn't need to be told why his father had come home alone.

His eyes hardened into accusation, and he fled into the bathroom, slamming the door behind him. The bathroom locked, and his room did not. Giles heard the choked sobs of his son, but knew he wouldn't be granted entry to console the child. Honestly, he doubted whether he had the strength to deal with his son's grief while his own was still so overwhelming.

He collapsed to the bottom step, uncertain whether his legs would support him if he tried to climb the stairs just yet. Robin curled up on the floor at his feet, tentatively tipping her head towards his lap. He pressed her head down, his thumb tracing from the back of her skull, down the ridges of her spine, then rubbing, palm flat, firm circles across the middle of her back.

She broke beneath his hand. Clutching his leg, her face pressed to his thigh, she shook with silent sobs. He rubbed steady circles over her back. The turn of the earth paused again beneath his feet. They might have stayed like that for hours. Or it could have been minutes. Time had stopped for them. She made no sound, just the steady hitch of her shoulders with each shaking sob. He felt her tears wet his trousers. But he was too numb for tears.

He felt like a sleepwalker waking to a changed world. He remembered leaving the house. And now coming home alone, but everything in between was a blur.

He knew these things: Buffy had died. The demon had gone. The demon eggs were destroyed. The apocalypse wouldn't come tonight. The storm had broken.

He knew these things like he read them in a book. Like a nightmare shaken off and forgotten in the morning.

He honestly couldn't remember who had taken Buffy's body. Stein? Wesley? Willow? Xander, even? They were the only ones he would have trusted. He was certain Willow had been the one to steer him home, to remind him of his responsibility to Alex and Robin.

He couldn't remember what Buffy had looked like in death. Peaceful and untouched? Or had the demon marked her? When he closed his eyes, he could only picture her at the bottom of Glory's tower, as she had died the last time, serene and satisfied with her noble sacrifice.

He felt Robin still beneath him, her sobs evening out as she dozed off. He rubbed those steady circles across her back until he was sure she had fallen asleep. Then he lifted her into his arms and carried her to bed. He slipped her shoes off and tucked her in, as he had when she was small and life seemed so much kinder. He caressed her cheek with his knuckles, and she turned into his touch with a contented sigh.

As he stepped into the hallway, he noticed the bathroom door standing open and Alex's door closed. His hand hovered over the handle, but he decided against intruding. If Alex had wanted him, he would have left his door cracked.

Instead, Giles went into the bathroom and prepared himself for bed.

He picked up his toothbrush and stared at it. If he closed his eyes, he could still taste Buffy in his mouth, that last casual kiss. He laid the toothbrush aside, unwilling to wash away any lingering traces of her.

The bed still smelled of her. Her pillow still bore the indentation from her head. The sheets were still twisted from when she woke that morning. He had given up years ago on trying to get her to make the bed.

He sat heavily on his side, as if he still had a side, as if the whole damn thing wasn't his now.

He tossed and turned, sleep eluding him. He had done this before. She had died, and he had mourned her, but he couldn't remember it hurting this badly before.

The clocked marked two hours of hopeless attempts at sleep when the door creaked open. Robin hesitated at the threshold, uncertain of her welcome. At ten and a half, she was far past the age of climbing into her parents' bed. But after what they had endured, he could hardly refuse. He held his hand out to her, and she melted with relief, scurrying over and making herself comfortable in the bed beside him. She wrapped one arm around his waist and fitted herself tightly against his side.

Barely ten minutes later, Alex stood nervously in the doorway. Giles held his free hand out to his son, but the boy seemed to debate himself, part of him wanting his father's comfort, part of him still blaming his father for everything.

The lost little boy won, and Alex climbed over Robin and then Giles to claim a place on his father's other side, no longer his mother's side. He tucked himself against Giles just as tightly as his sister had. His fingers sought his sister's, and they clasped hands across their father's stomach.

They slept in the shelter of their father's arms, and even if Giles could manage no more than restless dozing, he survived that first night by clinging tight to his son and daughter.

* * *

He had shed no tears yet for Buffy. The others thought he was trying to stay strong for his children, who broke at the slightest trigger. So they each took their turn alone with Giles: Willow, Xander, April, Wesley, Spike, even Anya. But they were mistaken. It wasn't strength that kept his grief bottled up, but rather a bone-chilling numbness that frosted over his heart and mind.

John came the day before the funeral. The house was full of helpful friends and relations, and the refrigerator was full of gifted casseroles. Giles had found a secluded spot on the back porch where he could call Hank Summers and give him an earful. Buffy's so-called father had said he would come to Sunnydale as soon as he could, but he dithered on the exact date. Giles described for him in no uncertain terms, and peppered with a sprinkling of colorful phrases, just exactly what he intended to do to the man if he didn't make it to Buffy's funeral. He snapped the phone closed before Hank could make anymore excuses, and clenched the cell phone in a trembling fist, resisting the urge to either crush it or fling it in a pique of anger.

John rescued the item from Giles' fingers before he could give in to the impulse.

"I am an ass," John informed him simply. "If I doubted that fact myself, April has been kind enough to build the prosecution's case and present the evidence to me. I am an ass. You have every right to throw me out. Except that I won't let you. I'm not going anywhere until you talk to me, and there's nothing you can do about it. After all, I am an ass, remember?"

Giles thumped the step beside him in invitation, and the awkwardness between them evaporated as if it had never existed.

"So what's your strategy?" Giles inquired.

"My what?"

"You know, how you'll 'uncork the bottle on my grief,' as Willow phrased it. I'm beginning to think they've laid bets on who can wring out my first tears." He reached up for his glasses, but they were in the house. He had nothing to do with his hands. "You planning to take me drinking?"

"From what I hear, Spike did a bang up job of that last night. Surprised you're still on your feet. If you must know, I thought fishing."

"Fishing?" Giles' wrinkled brow conveyed what he thought of that idea.

"Sure. Hours of silence, stuck with each other in a tiny boat, it's a time honored custom for male bonding."

"Sounds dreadful."

John chuckled and without warning, the chuckles degraded into choked sobs. Giles looped one arm around his friend's shoulders while he had a good cry.

When John had regained his composure, he complained, "That wasn't how this was supposed to go."

"You obviously needed it."

"Not half as much as you." Dry-eyed, although red-rimmed now, John examined his friend. "Willow's right. You shouldn't bottle it up."

Giles wished for his glasses, or a glass of scotch, or anything to keep his hands occupied. They felt empty. He finally confessed to John what he hadn't told the others.

"It's not real yet. I'm waiting to wake up."

"I'm sorry. I wish…" There was no point in finishing that statement. They all wished. But there were no Grief Demons to wield the power of the wish on behalf of despondent widows and widowers everywhere. There was Marcus' spell, but Giles had promised. The risks were too great.

"I buried her once before. We weren't… I loved her, but she didn't know. I thought that was the end. She was in the ground for five weeks, and I never thought…" He swallowed hard, the memory of his grief in those weeks more real and more cutting than the unreality of his current numb stupor.

"Jesus. She came back… from the dead?"

Giles nodded. "Twice. The first time she drowned, and Xander gave her CPR. This is the third time she's died. I can't even count how many times I almost lost her."

John didn't press for details. He would likely ask one of the others later, now that he knew the big secret. He only shook his head and muttered, "I can see how this wouldn't feel real."

"Her department is providing her an officer's service, a proper line-of-duty affair. Twenty-one gun salute, the flag, the pipes. I allowed it. I think Buffy would have liked it. For some reason, we watchers have no proper rituals to honor our slayers' sacrifice. Traditionally, at their deaths, they are given back to the families we stole them from."

"April made sure they offered Buffy full honors. No one deserves it more." John took a deep, steadying breath. "She's retiring, if you can believe it. My April turned in her badge. They're hoping she'll reconsider after she's had time to heal, but she won't take another partner after Buffy."

Retirement had never been an option for Buffy, but Giles managed not to envy John his small victory.

* * *

The funeral came and went. The out of town guests dispersed. The many tasks involved in laying Buffy to rest were complete. The days trickled by like molasses. Giles looked after the twins, comforted and consoled them as best he could. He made sure Robin ate. He made sure Alex had activities to occupy himself constructively. Long summer days without school. Even longer summer nights without her.

He made brief appearances at the Council, handled most things by phone from home, and left it to Willow and Stein to manage the daily grind.

They arranged for Faith's release from prison on good behavior. The world still needed a Slayer, after all.

Giles collapsed into bed each night, sapped of strength. The bone-chilling numbness would not leave him. He still had not grieved, mourned, cried, not even truly said goodbye. His heart was frozen, as if he had died with her.

The days trickled by, and Giles had no sense of their number. Without his journal entries, he had no mental tick mark by which to count each passing day. No school for the children to force a weekly schedule into his brain. He existed in a murky limbo. He understood now the custom of stopping all the clocks at the moment of death. For him, time stopped all on its own.

* * *

Ethan took one look at Giles and mentally cursed the man's dim-witted, selfish, so-called friends who had left it this long. What a bunch of miserable tossers. They should have called him sooner. He had known Ripper longer than any of them, longer than most of them had been _alive_, in fact, and he knew what Ripper needed better than any of them.

"That settles it. We're going out."

Giles, still struck mute by the unexpected visitor on his doorstep, had been forcibly escorted halfway to the curb before he could dig in his heels and muster up a protest. "The children!"

"Will be fine." Ethan dragged him along, one arm across his back, the other firmly gripping his elbow. "Willow will drop by soon enough to make sure the little terrors don't burn down the house. She's the one who suggested I visit, after all."

"Meddlesome witch."

"The term is warlock, as you well know."

"I was referring to Willow."

He didn't protest again, surrendered himself into Ethan's hands, and blandly accepted whatever mischief Ethan had planned for the two of them. Not a good sign at all.

Ethan first tried pints at a quiet, dim pub, a private corner booth where their conversation would be free to turn serious without risk of an audience. They reminisced, and laughed, and toasted each round of drinks. Ripper raised his glass to his Slayer once, and Ethan thought the facade might have cracked, a spark beneath the frozen tundra. But Ripper deftly evaded Ethan's prodding, continually dancing the conversation around the pink elephant in the room.

When they were drunk enough to impair their judgment, but no so drunk as to impair their balance, Ethan took him to a livelier bar. He scouted the room for the right sort of targets, the kind he could hold his own against. If things got too bad, he could always cheat and use magic.

Easily provoked, the larger of the brutes wasted no time in spinning Ethan's head with a wicked right cross. Ethan stepped aside and let Ripper have a go at him, setting his sights on the smaller of the two. Soon, their petty squabble erupted into a full-fledged bar fight, and it was like old times again. Nothing of Giles left in the man furiously pounding the younger ruffian who had wrongly assumed his youth would easily give him the edge against a couple of old geezers. Ripper through and through. The young man was quickly being reeducated in the advantages experience, training, and fury had over youth.

After they stumbled from the bar, Ethan laughing, Ripper brooding, and the bartender cursing the both of them, Ripper seemed to regret his temper.

"Don't fret, mate, I imagine you've inspired him to actually use his bloody gym membership."

Quiet, companionable drinks had failed to break down the walls. A common bar fight had let loose the fury, but not touched the grief. Ethan had only one more trick up his sleeve. And this trick would be the deal-breaker on the tenuous truce between them.

* * *

It should wound him that Ripper thought so little of him, that he would believe him capable of such a thing, that he should fall for the trap Ethan had laid. It should wound him, but it didn't. Like the scorpion, it was his nature. Ripper would have been more the fool to _not_ fall for the trap, and it was by his distrust that Ethan hooked him and reeled him in.

Nothing of the setup was implausible. The site of a slayer's death echoed with power for many moons after their passing. Any sorcerer knew that. A temporary magical hotspot that could fuel spells that would otherwise be beyond a caster's ability.

The spell. He dropped enough hints to Willow. They would mean nothing to her, but Ripper would solve the puzzle in short order and understand their significance. He would never question whether Ethan was capable of tampering with such forces if given a reason and opportunity. Resurrection. The darkest of magicks.

A life for a life. Blood for blood. That was the bargain that came with meddling in death. And this particular spell needed a particular sacrifice. Ethan snatched Ripper's son. Following in the footsteps of Randall's father, Ethan ensured Ripper's reaction by who hung in the balance.

He promised the vampires an easy meal. After all, Ripper would need an outlet for all that rage, and Ethan's self-preservation ran too high to offer himself as a punching bag.

The board was set, the pieces at play, and Ethan monitored the game from a distance. He regaled Alex with tales of his father's less noble exploits, tales that a repressed Giles would never share, and passed the time corrupting the boy and shattering his illusions as best he could in the little time he had.

When Ripper had taken the bait, Ethan returned the child and waited for the fallout. For once, he had done the damage without magic. He had forced Ripper to battle on without his Slayer. He had forced his oldest friend to stand once again in the spot where she had died. He would never be forgiven for this.

* * *

Ethan slipped into the hospital after visiting hours under cloak of magic. The hallway lights were dimmed. The skeleton crew performed their duties with quiet efficiency. He peered over the charge nurse's shoulder to spy Ripper's room number.

He needn't have bothered. Willow was standing in the hallway just outside the door, deep in conversation with a surgeon in hospital scrubs.

Normally, Willow would have sensed him, or at least his magic, even with the cloak, but the gorgeous lady doctor absorbed her full attention. Ethan indulged a momentary impulse and tipped a handy linen trolley over into Willow. Like dominoes, she was knocked forward into the doctor, and the pair of them then fell down to the floor in a tangle of limbs. He smiled at the image that quickly flashed through his mind: sandwiched between these two redheads in bed, and then sighed as he just as quickly dismissed it. Oh well, Willow could thank him for his cupid's arrow in other ways.

He ducked into Ripper's hospital room, still unnoticed. His eyes skimmed over the wrecked man before him: ghostly pale as if drained of blood, but no visible bite marks, so probably just shock, glistening with a thin sheen of sweat, probably too stubborn to admit to the staff that whatever medication they'd given him hadn't completely dulled his pain, and his left leg cocooned in plaster and elevated with wire rigged to a pulley. Ethan flinched in sympathy. A mace. Ouch.

When Ripper opened his green eyes, they focused on his erstwhile friend, and then flared with a spark of anger that might have left Ethan black and blue under other circumstances. He pressed his hand to the man's chest to restrain him from doing something stupid. Well, too late for that, as the white cast proved. But to restrain him from doing something _else_ stupid.

"I know, I know. You'd love nothing better than to give me a good thrashing. I'm afraid, old mate, you're just not up to it at the moment."

Ripper relaxed back against the pillows, apparently conceding that point. "Come to gloat?"

"Well, it does bear at least a mention… If you'd trusted me for once, you wouldn't be in this mess."

"_Trusted_…? Trusted _you_?" The laugh was hollow and choked, tears glittering in his eyes. "You kidnapped my son!"

"Borrowed. Only borrowed. We had a marvelous time." Ethan pulled up a chair, and as he said the next, he heard the hurt in his own voice and realized that although he claimed it didn't, Ripper's distrust stung. "Did you really think I would harm the boy? That I would honestly raise your Slayer?"

"If someone was paying you, or threatening you, it wouldn't surprise me. You've done worse."

Ethan had no witty reply on his tongue, and they sat in silence, broken by the occasional page over the hospital intercom. Ripper had closed his eyes, tighter and tighter as the seconds ticked by on the clock on the wall, until they were clenched shut. Tick. Tick. Each advance of the second hand echoed through the small room. Time moving forward and now carrying Ripper along with it.

When he spoke, his words were softer than the clock.

"She's gone. She's really gone."

And he broke. The frozen numbness shattered, and his raw grief surfaced finally. He turned his head from Ethan, the only escape he had, trapped in the bed as he was. But he couldn't hide the sobs that shook his body, that rattled his cast where the wires attached to the pulley. He squeezed his eyes shut, but his tears leaked out and betrayed him anyway.

Ethan rested one hand over Ripper's heart, felt the steady thrumming beat increase in tempo and felt the twist and tangle of his energy, his aura, as it burst free of its icy prison and struggled to realign itself.

"Let it out. Let it all out, old mate. I'm here. I'm right here."

Ethan stayed while Ripper wept. He stayed until sleep claimed them both. Willow woke him and shooed him out of the room before the others found him. They were likely less understanding of his latest piece of mischief than her. She took his place at Ripper's bedside.

And Ripper never spoke to him again.

* * *

Next:  
Part 7: Walking Paradox


	7. Walking Paradox

**Calling all you creative graphics gurus!**  
If anyone out there is good at doing graphics, I have a request for a cover for Unchosen. I tried contacting Dusty, who did the beautiful cover for Death Brings Clarity and had started on one for Unchosen (before I lost it in my computer theft), but I don't know if my contact info for her is still valid and I haven't heard back from her. So I'm looking for anyone else who would be willing to give it a try? Email me (jkphilips AT hotmail DOT com) and let me know. I would be so appreciative. Thanks!

* * *

ORIGINALLY POSTED: May 21, 2008  
TITLE: Unchosen  
AUTHOR: JK Philips  
RATING: PG  
SUMMARY: Sequel to the Death Brings Clarity saga, now nearly ten years after The Fine Art of Blackmail. Giles wanted to prevent his daughter from inheriting her mother's destiny. He wanted to give his son the choice he never had. He wanted Buffy to live a lifetime beside him. Fate had other plans...  
SPOILERS: Everything up to "The Gift"  
DISCLAIMER: I do not own these characters; they are the property of Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy & Fox. I simply am doing this for fun, and non-profit use.

* * *

Part 7: Walking Paradox

_More than two years after Buffy's death, present day…_

Buffy. Buffy in the kitchen. _Alive_.

Xander didn't believe it. Not from John's lips or Anya's. Not even with his own eyes. Standing in the doorway, watching Buffy and April nonchalantly sip cups of coffee, he still didn't believe it.

"Wait, wait, I know this one," he almost sighed in relief, sagging against the doorframe, finally able to make sense out of the chaos. "_That's_ the Buffybot."

The Buffybot rolled her eyes. "Yeah, right. Beheaded, remember? When we fought Glory? And if you tell me Willow put that thing back together… I am _so_ gonna kill her."

Okay, less perky and vapid than the Buffybot, but there's no way she could really be… "Buffy?"

"Hey, Xan." She smiled and wiggled her fingers in greeting. "It's really me. Real bona fide article, accept no substitutes."

"But, but, but you're _dead_."

"So everyone keeps telling me."

The mixture of amusement and annoyance in her voice decided him. Only Buffy could sound so cavalier about her own mortality, the same Slayer who traded quips beside blows, her tongue as sharp as her stake in battle.

A few halting steps, and then his feet came unstuck, and he was rushing to the table, tackling Buffy in a crushing hug, nose pressed to the top of her head and breathing in the scent of a living, breathing, joking Buffy. A moment later, and Willow arrived, enfolding the pair of them in her arms as well. Buffy surrendered to their embrace until oxygen became an issue.

"And you better not be getting snot in my hair," she warned them both as they pulled away, sniffling. Her hands smoothed her hair back carefully, as if checking for any suspicious wetness. "Okay, I get that you're glad to see me. April's been filling me in on stuff. But you gotta know, from my point of view, I never died. Never happened. I saw all of you just yesterday, in fact, and none of you were quite this clingy."

Anya was helping herself to juice from the fridge before joining them at the table. "Alternate timeline," she said with authority. "I used to do this all the time when I granted wishes. You didn't make a wish, did you? A spoiled adolescent-like wish for people to appreciate you more after you were dead?"

"No, Anya."

"'Cause that would have been Halfrek. She specializes in spoiled adolescent wishes. Daddy issues." Anya hooked a finger under the gold chain peeking out from Buffy's collar and pulled the necklace into the light, catching the pendant in the palm of her hand. "Doesn't look like this came from any vengeance demon I know of."

"It came from Giles," Buffy insisted tetchily, but before she could reclaim it and tuck it away beneath her shirt again, Anya had yanked it from her neck with a sharp tug.

"Oww!" Buffy was rubbing her neck where the chain had snapped off and glaring daggers at Anya, but Xander and the rest of the room were more focused on the fact that Anya's hand was empty. The necklace had melted away into nothing the moment it slipped off her neck.

"Hey!" Buffy's irritation escalated into outrage the moment she noticed that fact as well. "That was an anniversary present."

"In your timeline," Anya clarified. "In our timeline, you didn't have anymore anniversaries. You died."

Xander flinched. Sometimes his wife's brutal honesty was too much even for him. He softened the mood with humor, his attempt at distraction desperate even to his own ears. "Does that mean if Buffy takes off her clothes, they'll, you know… poof?"

Buffy's eyes widened in alarm.

Willow cleared her throat. "Umm… maybe Giles will still have some of her old clothes, from… before. Or-or we can pick up some new clothes."

"Someone needs to call him. Call Giles." John's firm voice startled Xander. He'd forgotten the other man was there, hovering at the threshold, as if afraid to come any closer. White as a ghost and still trembling slightly, John might have been inducted as an honorary Scooby over two years ago, but aside from his initial introduction to vampires, he'd never experienced the supernatural weirdness of their life except through stories. It was one thing to hear the tale of Buffy's swan dive off Glory's tower and her miraculous resurrection five weeks later, and quite another to sit through her funeral and then sit down to coffee with her two and a half years later. The man was wigged. Understandably so.

Willow hadn't taken her eyes off Buffy, even though she addressed her response to John. "I don't think that's a good idea. Not until we know more. Why she's back, and… and for how long."

"I get why you haven't told him about the… the demon coming back," John said. "But you can't keep _this_ from him. If-if it were April… I wouldn't care about how long. You have to—_we_ have to tell him."

"When Angel came back," Buffy reminded them, "that first Thanksgiving after we broke up, you guys all kept it a secret. Remember how pissed I was when I found out?"

Xander considered the strain Giles had been under lately: Faith's death, Robin's probable Calling and then unexplainable reprieve, followed by the unending search for the next slayer, still missing in action. He remembered his intervention, convincing Giles that it was time to let Faith go, and the fear he had finally put into words, the real reason he was so reluctant to pull the plug: _If I lose Robin… it will be like losing Buffy a second time. I can't face that alone._ How could they put him through all that again? Xander had to agree with Willow: they needed more information before they could justify that kind of emotional roller coaster.

"Buff, what if this is like vamp-Willow from Anya's hell dimension—"

"_Cordelia's_ hell dimension," Anya mumbled in correction.

"—and you have to go back where you came from?" Xander finished. "Do you have any idea what that would do to him? To your kids?"

She flinched when he said kids and dropped her eyes to her lap. When she raised them again, they were shuttered, her voice tight and controlled. "How many people pray for a second chance? Huh, Xander? So what if our two worlds cross for even just a day? Whatever other hellmouthy reason I'm here, maybe it can also be about a second chance."

"Yeah, okay," Xander agreed, still not convinced, "but if it still ends the same, it's just 'Groundhog's Day.' What will that accomplish?"

"I'm glad that you guys are looking out for them. Really, I am. But it's my call. I have to see them. And if we're gonna figure this out, we're gonna have to all play on the same team. No secrets. He has to know about the demon too. It's connected somehow."

Willow frowned in that familiar, sympathetic, resigned face. She traded an apprehensive look with him. If Buffy wanted to insist on this, then it would be up to them to prepare Giles for it first. She couldn't just show up at the front door like she'd done with John. That would give her poor watcher a heart attack.

So how did one prepare a guy for a visit from his late wife, who possibly might not be able to stay for long?

* * *

Spike was making entirely too much noise. He was doing it on purpose.

Giles pressed his fingers to either side of his temple and rubbed small soothing circles, trying to ignore the clatter of cups, the bang of cupboard doors opening and slamming, the rattle as the vampire reorganized his refrigerator's contents. He flinched at the victory shout as Spike emerged with a bag of blood, which he tore open with his teeth and emptied into a round and brightly painted cappuccino cup, almost large enough to be a cereal bowl. Which he then crumbled cereal into.

Giles closed his eyes against a wave of nausea. In through the nose. Out through the mouth. Again.

Spike clapped him on the back as he climbed up on a stool at the center island beside him. "You and Dawnie are quite the pair this morning." He elbowed Giles playfully, or was it sadistically? "The way she complained about the sunlight, you'd think I turned her."

The way Spike's jostling was making his head throb, it was a wonder that chip didn't have the vampire writhing on the floor. Or was that just wishful thinking?

"We were reminiscing."

"Drinking to days gone by. Toasting the magnificent Buffy, greatest slayer of them all. Understand the sentiment, but have a care 'fore you go gettin' kid sister smashed, alright? Dawn's a lightweight compared to you."

Giles sipped carefully from his teacup. Still too hot, but the aroma cured his irritability, if not his headache. "And to think, just last night, Dawn was lecturing me on the fact that she's not a kid and not my responsibility anymore."

"True enough. Just saying… frail little mortal bodies wear out fast enough as it is, don't need nobody adding unnecessary mileage."

With that, Spike jumped up to retrieve his AB/Shredded Wheat soup from the microwave. And Giles suddenly realized he had more in common with Spike than he'd ever imagined or would ever admit. They were both men who had knowingly chosen women with much shorter life expectancies. All the time he'd been focused on keeping Buffy alive, desperate to stave off the inevitable fate of all slayers, he had never considered that Spike carried the same burden. No matter that Dawn would likely live a long and healthy life, die many decades from now of old age, long after Giles, Spike would still be forced to outlive her, by centuries, by eons even. It made Giles' personal tragedy shrink in comparison.

When Spike returned to his seat at the center island, Giles looked at him with new eyes. Sympathy, empathy really, stirred inside him, a sense of kindred spirits.

"What're you lookin' at?" Spike shattered the moment of tenderness with a glare of total revulsion. "You're not still drunk, gonna start spouting off that you love me, call me brother, some sorta nonsense like that, are you?"

"Not enough scotch in the world for that, Spike. Promise." Giles redirected his affection to his tea, breathed in its blissful scent. Tea, were it able to, would appreciate his affection, his understanding. Tea would not turn itself bitter out of spite.

"Good. Only so much family togetherness I can stand, stuck in your house 'til sunset." Spike spooned up a mouthful of his dreadful morning concoction, and Giles frowned in disgust. Bad enough when they'd been roommates, back when Spike had first gotten chipped, but he shouldn't have to put up with it now.

"Must you eat in front of me?" Giles made a mental note to throw out the cup and spoon after his guests had left.

"Have to put up with you _existing_ in front of me, don't hear me complaining."

"Boys!" Dawn warned, stumbling into the kitchen and raking her tangled heap of bed-hair out of her eyes. She wrapped her robe tighter around herself and pulled the belt snug before plopping on a stool across from them. "It's not that bad, Giles. You get used to it. I've seen live people eat worse stuff on 'Fear Factor.'"

"Yes, and if my limited grasp of pop culture is correct, they usually vomit shortly afterwards."

Dawn pulled a face. "Let's not use that word, 'kay?" She groaned and let her head flop down to the countertop. "I hate you. You are no longer my favorite brother-in-law, substitute father figure. You're hereby demoted to guy who lives with my niece and nephew."

Giles chuckled and fetched her a glass of water and two aspirin. "If you'll recall, you were the one begging me to share and share alike."

"Well, yeah, sure, if you're gonna go and treat me like an adult. Where was this side of you when I was in high school?"

At that moment, Xander and Willow wandered in, as surprised to see Dawn and Spike as Giles was to see the pair of them.

"Dawnie!" Willow's giddy, too-loud squeal made both Giles and Dawn wince.

"Quiet on the set," Dawn begged as Willow hugged her tight.

Xander ruffled her mess of hair fondly. "Looks like my little Scream Queen had herself a rough night."

"His fault." She pointed in Giles' direction. "And don't call me that, Xander. It's been years since I made one of those movies."

"Dawnie, Dawnie, Dawnie… You should know: I thought of you as the Scream Queen long before you followed in the esteemed footsteps of Jamie Lee Curtis and Neve Campbell. Watching you scream 'Get out!' at a horde of rampaging zombies on a 50-foot screen with THX surround sound only made me nostalgic."

"Is no one happy to see _me_?" Spike complained.

"Only if you fit in a box this big." Xander mimed the dimensions of a cigar box. "And _what_ are you eating?"

"You don't want to know," Giles assured him.

Willow, undeterred by Spike's lumpy soup of blood and cereal, crossed the room to give him a hug and a smack on the cheek. He squirmed away from her and scrubbed the echo of her lips from his skin like a fourth grader afraid of cooties.

"Where're the twins?" she asked.

"Upstairs," Giles said. "Still in bed, I imagine."

"Hiding out from Giles," Dawn added. "They are in so much trouble. Snuck out last night, remember?"

"Worse than that," Spike insisted. When Giles tipped his head and furrowed his brow in puzzled inquiry, he only answered, "Better be having a sit down with that son of yours, Rupe. He's been holding out on you. Both of them, actually."

"Spike." Giles' tone was warning. "What do you know?"

A shrug and the now empty bowl and spoon were dumped in the sink. Mental note: new sink. "Promised the kid I'd give him a day to come clean 'fore I ratted him out."

"Speaking of coming clean…" Willow slipped over to Giles' side and looped one arm through his.

Xander nervously jumped in with a joke. "Your doctor girlfriend _is_ imaginary! I knew it!"

She rolled her eyes, and he muttered an apology. "We need to meet with you in your office," she told Giles seriously. "At Council headquarters. We'll explain on the way. Spike and Dawn can stay here with the twins. We'll give you a few minutes to clean up." She ghosted the back of her knuckles across his morning stubble with a wry grin. He hadn't showered or shaved yet.

As he headed out of the kitchen, he heard Willow's voice trail behind him in his wake, an irked protest aimed in Xander's direction: "_What_? I just thought he'd want to look _nice_. Or at least not like he'd—"

Whatever critique Willow was about to offer on his appearance, he was already upstairs and out of earshot when she made it.

* * *

The front door had barely closed before Spike heard the patter of timid feet down the stairs. Pair of eavesdroppers knew the moment their father had gone and the coast was clear. They greeted Dawn enthusiastically, but kept their distance from Spike, solemn eyes blinking up at him owlishly in fearful anticipation of a reprise of last night's tongue-lashing.

He was used to Robin's wary distance, although she usually warmed to him by the end of a visit. Alex, on the other hand, had always been his eager shadow since the child had learned to walk. Spike wasn't used to the pitiful look of a whipped puppy from those green eyes. Like he was any kind of authority figure to be dishing out punishments.

"Enough sulking, both of you. Pair of brooding Angels. Look, I said my piece last night; rest of it's between you and your dad. So stop giving me those poor, orphan looks."

He tugged the boy to his chest for a rough one-armed hug and felt the slayer strength deceptively coiled in the child's muscles. Stronger than him, and yet not even as tall. Same could've been said about Buffy, though.

Spike stretched his free hand towards Robin, smoothed his fingers through her hair and rested them against the nape of her neck, as he had done countless times when comforting Dawn. Robin closed her eyes and leaned into his touch, still too wary to risk closer contact. She looked so much like her mother, he wondered how Giles could bear it.

"Dawn, you go ahead and run upstairs, make yourself human. I'll keep the twin terrors here out of trouble."

He waited until he heard the upstairs shower turn on. "Right, then. You wanna play watcher and slayer? Let's see what you got." He led them both towards the basement. "Mind you, the fight will be mostly one-sided, on account of this bleedin' chip in my skull, but still… let's see if you can take down a real vamp. I'll teach you some moves you won't get from no prissy Council lessons."

* * *

Xander chauffeured them. Willow sat sidewise in the backseat beside Giles, her feet tucked underneath her and her nervous babbling ratcheting up his stress levels with each passing block.

They were parked in Giles' usual spot before Willow and Xander swallowed in unison and finally briefed him on what exactly was waiting for him in his office. Or rather, _who_ exactly.

The demon was back. With such a perfect track record for prophecy and a penchant for gloating – _You will let her fall_ – seemed like the blasted thing would have mentioned a return visit. He should be angrier with the others for keeping the secret from him, but he could only focus on the thought of Buffy, an alternate Buffy, waiting for him in his office.

He leaned heavily on his cane as he followed them inside, feeling his age and every war wound. His legs were like jelly, and without the support of his cane, they would have folded beneath him.

Stein stood sentry outside Giles' office, arms crossed, his muscular bulk and imposing glare warning away any possible gawkers like a bouncer at the Bronze. Surely someone must have seen her entrance, and the rumor would spread like wildfire. There would need to be a memo or a meeting or something to address the situation with the rest of the Council, but he could leave that to Stein to handle.

Giles paused for a moment outside his door, marshalling his wits about him, grateful for Xander and Willow's calming presence, though he suspected underneath their bravado, they were as rattled as he.

He entered and there she was, perched on the edge of his desk, legs swinging, chatting with Wesley. Her eyes lit up the moment she saw him, a broad silly grin warming her expression like the dawn breaking in glorious colors across the horizon.

"Give us a moment, Wes," she requested, a teasing note in her voice that hinted she might jump him at the first opportunity.

Then they were alone. She hopped off his desk and raced over to him, stopping short the moment before collision. Her eyes inspected him, seemingly cataloguing every difference. Her hand hovered inches over his, over the hand curled tight around his cane's smooth silver grip. She never touched him, but traced her finger down the dark walnut staff instead.

"This is new," she commented. "Is it for show, or do you… need it?"

"Some days I do." His eyes drank her in too. She was thinner than he remembered, her shoulders squared as if through force of habit. "Your hair… it's longer than I've ever seen it."

She brushed her hands through it self-consciously and examined the ends. "A little darker, too, with highlights. Do you like it? You said you did."

"It's lovely."

She smiled brightly and bounced up on her toes to press a kiss to his lips. He tensed and didn't return it, frozen where he stood. She rocked back to her heels, frowning at him, clearly hurt by his emotional distance.

"You're not my Buffy," he explained. He wanted so much for her to be his, to belong here in this world with him. A mistake, a terrible mistake, and she had never died. Or maybe resurrected after the fact by Marcus' spell or someone else's. Maybe even Ethan and no ruse this time.

But they had made it clear to him. She wasn't his Buffy. She was an alternate version, one who hadn't died. And to pretend otherwise… that way laid madness.

She took a careful step backwards, respecting his personal space, forfeiting her right to the intimate distance between them. She then reminded him very softly, "I _am_ your Buffy. Just… plus another couple years."

She sighed and started pacing the width of his office. "However screwed up this is for all of you, it's a hundred times worse for me. You all have each other, but my whole world is different. _You're_ different. Not the Giles I went to bed with last night. And everyone keeps looking at me like… It makes me feel like I'm stepping on my own grave. And all I want to do is see our kids, but I don't know if that'll make things worse or better for them. But what if this is a second chance, for all of us, to put things right, and I shouldn't waste it? I have to see our kids, Giles. I _have_ to."

She stopped her pacing and spun on her heel to face him. Her eyes were desperate.

"Let's… let's not rush anything just yet."

"I have to rush, Giles. I'm the Slayer. I'm already on borrowed time as it is. And if I'm gonna get a second curtain call, I want it to count for something."

He nodded absently. What would be best for Alex and Robin? He honestly had no idea. Would it be worse to subject them to losing their mother a second time, or worse to deny them this second chance at goodbye?

"Please, Buffy, I think we should research first, find some answers as to why you're here and for… for how long. At the end of the day, we'll see where we're at and decide where to go from there."

"Fair enough."

Giles assigned every watcher to the task. He tabled ongoing research on finding the next slayer. Every book cracked, every word breathed, every call made, from the newest recruit straight up to the inner circle revolved around either the Vaurabyll demons and their prophecies or alternate timelines and dimensions. The Library turned into a war room, and at the center table sat the core four, as Xander had once dubbed them, Sunnydale's original and inseparable team: Giles, Buffy, Willow, and Xander. They fell into a comfortable, familiar rhythm, and Giles could almost believe they were back at the high school library and he had not buried his slayer twice already.

"She's not an alternate, not really." Anya joined them at the center table, dumping her jacket over the back of a chair before sitting in it.

"An, honey, what is she then?" asked Xander, with the infinite patience of a man who had been married to her for thirteen years.

"A paradox."

"A paradox?"

"A most ingenious paradox," Willow finished, grinning to herself. Off the other's puzzled stares, she wiped the amused look from her face. "Not Gilbert and Sullivan fans? Giles, you get it, right?"

Anya ignored Willow and continued. "I pulled in some favors, old contacts from my vengeance days. Someone is trying to change the past. And the past is fighting back."

"Let me just say what everyone here is thinking," Xander said. "Huh?"

She smiled kindly and patted his hand. "All those shows you like to watch, Xander, with the spaceships and the laser swords and the refreshingly forthright android who wants to be human—"

"And the chicks in the skintight catsuits. Don't forget those. That's really why I watch them," he insisted.

She smiled indulgently and patted his hand again. "Everyone already knows you're a geek, Xander. You don't have to pretend. So… all those shows, invariably someone starts mucking about with time. They usually end up invalidating their own existence and create a great big paradox, and really, it could never happen that way. Take it from a former vengeance demon. Half the wishes I granted required me to twist around the time stream in one way or another. You can't go around creating alternate universes every time a southern belle catches her plantation owner diddling the field hands and wishes the North had won. There'd be so many fracking universes, they'd be bleeding into each other. But you can't really go around changing actual history either. Way too much fallout. So you have to creatively rewrite the present."

She folded her hands neatly on the table in front of her, pondering for a moment the easiest way to clear up any confusion. "Let's say you wish your cheating boyfriend had never been born. Poof. Wish granted. But if he'd never been born, he'd never have cheated on you, and you would have never made the wish in the first place. Paradox. Plus, you couldn't gloat. So, instead, the power of the Wish changes the world around you, from that moment forward, and leaves you untouched. Your personal timeline stays the same. In fact, the past technically stays the same; it's only the present and everyone else's memories that change.

"Cordelia wished that Buffy had never come to Sunnydale. When I granted her wish, I could change the entire world around her, but I couldn't change her. Her past had to stay the same, so she could still make the wish. And when Giles- _that_ Giles- undid the wish, the world changed around _me_. My timeline stayed the same. My powers were still gone."

"When the monks created Dawn," Buffy added, catching on to Anya's meaning, "they gave us all fake memories. It felt like she'd been there her whole life, even though she hadn't."

"Exactly!"

"So where did vamp-Willow come from?" Xander wondered. "If it wasn't really an alternate universe?"

"From an earlier point in my personal timeline. Technically, vamp-Willow and Willow-Willow were the same Willow, just at different points in my timeline. And since the wish was undone, the spell could pull her forward without changing the past. Otherwise, it wouldn't have worked."

Willow nodded, following along with Anya's lesson. The most important question, of course, was still unanswered. "So how does Buffy fit in? How can she be here, alive, and yet all of us remember her dead? If something changed, shouldn't our memories have changed too? Shouldn't we remember her alive?"

"Whatever is happening to the time stream, it's still in flux. It could go either way at this point. Her version of things or ours. Who knows which one will win out? So right now, she's a paradox. Two possible outcomes existing side by side. You see, this isn't magic or wishing. Someone is actually, literally changing the past, which shouldn't be possible. And the past is trying to heal itself. Like a scab on a wound." Anya looked at Buffy and reconsidered her words. "Or like a grain of sand irritating an oyster, and it turns into a pearl. You can be the pearl, Buffy."

"Better than a scab," she mumbled.

"Until whatever is happening gets resolved, until time is fixed again, we have both a world where Buffy died and a Buffy where she didn't, both at the same time. And if that's not confusing enough, if the past changes anymore, the world may not hold together. Too many wounds, more than time can scab over—" An apologetic look at Buffy and a quick backpedal. "I mean, too many grains of sand, and the oyster of time is choking on pearls."

"Maybe we can forget the metaphors," Buffy suggested.

"My point is that whatever is changing the past needs to be stopped or our entire reality could completely unravel. End of the world. Apocalypse, with a whimper and not a bang."

Giles nodded, putting one more piece of the puzzle together. "You mean this could unmake the world."

"The Vaurabyll," Anya agreed, remembering her original warning about them. "Legend said they could unmake the world. Now I guess we know how."

"I need to know how I died." Buffy took charge, squared her shoulders, brisk, efficient, and authoritative. "Compare notes. We need to figure out what's been changed."

Giles couldn't meet their eyes. He felt the weight of all their stares. No one had ever pushed him for details before, probably had no idea that it was beyond his ability to give them.

"Giles is the only one," Willow pointed out softly, "the only one who knows."

"I can't."

Buffy sighed, the same irritation she'd shown in the Magic Box when they'd been researching final battles and he'd started to speculate on why the watchers failed to keep adequate records. "Giles, I know it's painful, but we need all the facts if we're gonna keep the world, you know, _made_."

He met her eyes, hoped she would understand. "I _can't_."

"Giles—"

"Buffy, I can't remember. It's a blank, almost as if I blacked out. I really, truly can't tell you anything."

"Oh."

He turned his back on their pity, limped over to sift through a stack of books on a nearby table, leaning heavily on his cane. Emotional exhaustion wore on his muscles as strongly as physical exertion. And he had avoided his physical therapy sessions for too many weeks.

When he returned to the group, they were silent, absorbed in books. Only Anya seemed inclined to poke at him further.

"Maybe we could find a spell to help Giles remember."

"Maybe," Giles snapped back, "it would be more useful for Buffy to share her version of events with us, how she managed to survive."

She shrugged casually. "Nothing special. The demon never showed. I never fought it. Never died. The end."

Hardly the end of the story. Something in her eyes was evasive. She didn't want to relive that night anymore than he did.

* * *

When Giles came home from the office that night, Willow and Xander trailed in behind him. They took Spike and Dawn into the kitchen for a private discussion. Giles ordered his children into the living room, and they waited politely, shoulder to shoulder in front of the fireplace, standing ramrod straight like little soldiers at morning inspection. Their wide eyes followed him, their demeanor cowed as if he might beat them. As if he would ever beat them.

"I'm very angry with both of you."

They nodded, accepting this.

"Sneaking out of the house is unacceptable. Especially after dark. It's foolish and dangerous, and you both know better."

They nodded their agreement.

"I won't tolerate this kind of behavior. And you will be punished for it. After I've had more time to think clearly and devise a suitable penalty."

They nodded, although it was hardly what they were hoping to hear. Waiting and dreading and guessing at their future punishment would likely be worse than anything he could come up with.

"Now, come here." He drew them forward, one hand gripping a shoulder each, and hugged them, one to each side. He rested his chin against Robin's head. He rubbed his hand up and down Alex's arm. Dear God, he prayed this was the right decision.

"Something's happened. Please understand, by telling you this, I'm asking you both to be far more grownup than your age. This will be difficult, and I'm sorry. I am so sorry. But we didn't think it right to keep this from you." He took a breath, felt them trembling in anticipation in his arms. "The demon that killed your mother has returned. And it's… changing things. There's now a version of events where your mother didn't die. And she's… here. She's back."

They turned hopeful faces up towards his. So eager, it broke his heart.

"Mom?"

"Mother?"

He shook his head. They needed to understand. He couldn't let them risk their hearts so completely. "I don't know how long this will last. The demon has to be stopped. And when it is, everything might go back to the way it was."

"But it might not," Alex insisted.

"I don't know, son. All I know is that right now we have your mother back. But it's quite possible that her return is only temporary. You need to both prepare yourselves for that." He cupped their cheeks in his palms, looking back and forth between son and daughter, trying to gauge whether they were strong enough to carry this burden, or whether it would break them. "If this is too much… You don't have to see her. She can stay at the Council until her future is more… certain."

"No!" They both begged, pleaded, clamored, implored to see their mother, insisting they could handle it, for however long she was with them.

He mentally crossed his fingers – _here's to second chances_ – and fetched Buffy in from where she'd been waiting in the car. He spied the others loitering in the kitchen doorway, Spike and Dawn waiting their turn, and led her into the living room.

The twins launched themselves at her before she'd barely passed through the French doors. She stumbled slightly, nearly bowled over by their enthusiasm. The children pressed themselves tightly to her, almost as if trying to burrow all the way inside her. And she, in turn, clutched them so tightly, he actually worried she might forget her slayer strength.

They called for her, between choking sobs, claimed her with the names they mumbled against her shoulders: "Mommy" and "Muffy" over and over again like a mantra.

She murmured softly to them, nothing he could hear, and wept as she stroked their hair. Earlier in the day, when he had first seen her, he had been grateful to have his cane to keep him on his feet. Watching her, he knew the children kept her on hers. Without a child beneath each arm, he was certain she would have folded to the ground.

When they finally pulled back, she wobbled slightly where she stood, but recovered quickly. She turned to Alex first, framing his face between her hands, tears still streaming down her cheeks. He was crying too, looking so impossibly young and lost, and Giles doubted whether he had made the right decision.

"Look at you. More like your father every day." She pulled him up next to her and studied the top of his head. "My Lord, two more inches and you'll be as tall as me."

Alex grinned through his tears, a silly, goofy grin Giles hadn't seen in far too long.

She ruffled his sandy-brown hair and kissed him soundly on the cheek, and this time he didn't scrub away the mark of her lipstick or protest that he was too old for his mother's kisses.

She turned to Robin next, and smoothed her hair back from her shoulders, wiped the tears from her face. "My precious girl." Buffy kissed her on the cheek, and then admired her nails. "Been borrowing my 'Cotton Candy Pink,' I see." A teasing wink. "Looks better on you anyway." She tugged on the girl's shirtsleeves. "And when's the last time your father took you shopping? Your arms are too long for your sleeves."

Robin rolled her eyes, and Buffy pulled her in for another hug, shooting Giles a scolding look over the top of her head. "Just so long as you don't let her legs get too long for her skirts, mister."

He couldn't help but fall into the familiar rhythm of teasing her back. "Never fear. If the skirt doesn't touch the floor when she kneels, she'll not leave the house in it." Of course, if Joyce had instituted that policy, Buffy would have missed her entire sophomore year of high school.

Buffy reached out and dragged Alex back into the hug again, holding tight to both children, and watching Giles expectantly. She wanted him to join them in their group hug, he guessed. But he couldn't let himself forget that she was a paradox, a fleeting mirage in the desert. Odd, that in this situation, his thirteen-year-old children were braver than he.

By the time Spike and Dawn took their turn, Buffy had pulled herself together, helped herself to the handkerchief Giles kept in his breast pocket, and cleaned the tears from her face. She was all smiles and playful teasing with her sister.

"Hey, 'nough of that," Buffy chided, using Giles' handkerchief to clean away Dawn's tears as well. "Your big sis coming back from the dead should be old hat to you by now." Buffy frowned as a sudden thought occurred to her. "And aren't you supposed to be starring, you know, off-off-Broadway right now? My dying didn't derail your career in this world, did it? 'Cause where I come from, you're almost at the top of the B-list."

Dawn smiled, successfully distracted from her tears. "No. And it's off-Broadway, not off-off. My understudy's filling in. When the Council calls, I still come a runnin'."

"Good. I'd hate to think I ruined your Oscar chances. I'm counting on seeing you on that stage one day, holding your little gold statue in the air, telling the whole world: 'This is for Buffy, who gave me my start—'"

"Gave me my start?"

"Well who else gave you all those opportunities to master that trademark scream?"

Dawn huffed and stamped her foot. "For God's sake, I stopped making those movies _years_ ago!"

"And yet, every time you're on Leno, they play the little clips."

Dawn smacked her on the arm, and Buffy giggled, and Dawn armed herself with a throw pillow, and Buffy defended herself with another, and the sisters regressed to teenagers again as they pounded each other with pillows, laughing. The twins piled on, three against one, until Willow and Xander came to Buffy's defense and evened the odds. All out war raged across the living room, and Giles stood in the entryway, shaking his head.

Spike looked sideways at him and commented, "I got a chip in my skull. What's your excuse?"

"Leave it, Spike."

But Spike was always too damned insightful. "Letting her in means letting her go again." He leaned in closer, relishing the fact that he had Giles' number. "Might be a problem, if you'd ever actually let her go."

The Great Pillow War came to an end with neither side victorious, and with one vase, three picture frames, and two candle holders from the sideboard as casualties of collateral damage. Giles called for peace when he feared the glass bookcases could be next. Willow and Xander made hasty farewells, Xander apologizing profusely as he belatedly did the math on four boys plus one Giles with a grudge, all let loose in _his_ house. Good thing no one had smashed through the glass doors on the bookcases.

Much later, as the evening wore down, and the twins could no longer stifle their yawns, they worked out sleeping arrangements. The twins doubled up in Robin's room – Dawn's original room when they'd first moved to Sunnydale – and Dawn and Spike would take Alex's – Buffy's old room before she'd moved in with Giles – which left Giles and Buffy their own room.

Buffy put the children to bed, ending their protests with the firm reminder that they had school in the morning. She was wiping away tears as she came back down the stairs. Sensing the need for private time, Spike and Dawn made themselves scarce, and Buffy and Giles were left alone in the living room.

She smiled at him, and he forced a smile in return, and then she started straightening up after the earlier pillow fight. He helped, and they orbited around each other awkwardly, never actually touching.

As she passed the fireplace mantel, she gasped and let the pillow she was holding slip through her fingers. She stepped closer, noticing for the first time what was different between her house and his. There between the familiar picture frames and candles rested the precisely folded triangle of the American flag. It had draped across her coffin, and her commanding officer had presented it to him from clean white gloves. Giles had clutched it like an anchor as each of the three volleys rang out from the rifles.

Displayed beside the blue and white flag: a large black vase, the elegant curves of its surface so dark and smooth they reflected back to him her shocked eyes.

"Please don't tell me..."

He had no words, merely bowed his head.

"This is me? You keep me in an urn on the mantel?" She reached hesitant fingers towards the vessel, so dark and flawless, it was like a black hole. But in the end, she could not bring herself to actually touch it and drew her hand back. "How can I be in there and out here at the same time? Am I still in there, you think? And if I touched me, would the universe like implode or something?"

She faced him then, a disappointed frown tugging at her lips. "You were supposed to scatter me on the beach or somewhere pretty."

"I… I will. I just… haven't yet."

"I guess I should be grateful you cremated me. I used to have so many nightmares about turning into a vampire."

"I made sure," he reassured her. "After the official services. I promised I would."

"Good. Don't think I could rest in peace thinking some Marcus copycat could get their hands on my body and make those nightmares come true." She busied herself making sure all the pillows were returned to where they belonged and all the knocked over knick-knacks were righted. She straightened and fluffed longer than necessary, past the point of having everything cleaned up again.

Giles sank into an armchair and absently massaged his left leg.

Buffy noticed and approached him, tentatively replacing his fingers with her own. She worked out each knot, pressing hard with her slayer strength. He could feel the constant ache ease somewhat beneath her talented fingers.

"How'd you end up needing a cane?"

"A vampire with a mace."

"Ouch." She kneaded the muscles alternately with fingers and knuckles, keeping up the firm pressure no mortal could have hoped to match. He sighed and sank deeper into the cushions. Over time, he had learned to tune out the constant pain in his leg, aware of it only when it became more acute than normal. But now as he noticed what it felt like to have some relief, he fully realized how much he usually hurt.

"The doctors weren't sure I'd walk again."

"So, worse than when you were shot?"

"Much." He closed his eyes and relaxed as he enjoyed her steady massage. He hadn't felt this good since… well, since a vampire had smashed a mace into his femur. "Hmmm, that's… that's bloody marvelous," he told her drowsily.

"Giles, can I ask you something?"

"Hmmm?"

"Have you gone on a date yet?"

He sat up straighter. "A date?" As if they were discussing a new piece of technology he had never heard of and had no use for.

"I know _we_ never had any actual dates, but I know you know what a date is. Coffee? Lunch? Even once in two and a half years?"

"I haven't exactly been flush with free time."

She stopped her massage and patted him on his thigh. "So that would be a 'no.'"

Was she _disappointed_? That he hadn't been in a hurry to replace her? "Can we not have this discussion?"

"So it's safe to say my unexpected return from the dead won't crimp your love life," she mumbled.

She gave him a hand up, which he reluctantly accepted.

They had all agreed that she wouldn't patrol. Firstly, if Buffy – this temporary paradox of Buffy – was pivotal to winning against this demon who could alter the past and unmake the world, then they couldn't risk her. Secondly, they couldn't risk any chance encounters with anyone in the general public who knew her, had attended her funeral, had sent flowers and casseroles, and now gave him pitying looks as he passed them on the street. If even one squad car caught sight of her, their lives would suddenly get a lot more difficult.

His growing network of trained watchers had been handling the routine slayage since Faith's final battle. And they would continue to do so until they solved the mystery of the Vaurabyll and eventually found the next slayer. Buffy would stay sequestered either at home or at the Council.

Which meant that the next stop was bed. He couldn't avoid it with an all-night research session. He had slept precious little the last few nights, and her massage had made him relaxed and drowsy. She couldn't avoid it either, stuck in the house and without patrol as an excuse. Although, from her perspective, he supposed, sleeping together would still feel quite normal, nothing to think twice about.

He glanced one last time at the urn on the mantel before heading upstairs, reminding himself that she was dead and this was temporary. A paradox.

The first thing Buffy did was examine the contents of the closets and drawers. Most of her things were gone. He was not so masochistic as to torture himself with all her belongings crowding his living space, perfectly preserved like a shrine. But she did find the few things he had kept, tucked away in the far back of the closet. A few carefully chosen pieces of clothing hanging behind his old tweed suits from Sunnydale High. A banker's box with a couple of neatly folded shirts, her diaries, the music box with the ice skating figurine, and inside the more valuable or sentimental pieces of jewelry.

She slipped on her wedding ring, duplicate to the one she was already wearing, and laughed to see the two identical rings on her finger. "This is so weird."

She rifled through the box one last time and sighed. "I suppose it's too much to hope that you saved my favorite pair of jeans. Or that halter-top I liked with the blue swirls. Or," she grinned and threw him a sly sideways glance. "Or were kinky enough to save your favorite bra and panty set, the ones with the—"

"Buffy, what on earth are you playing at?"

She shoved the box back to the back of the closet once more and stood. "The fate of my paradoxical clothes remains to be seen, and I'd just like to be prepared. I mean, this wasn't even in style when I died. And it's not like I can go on a mall crawl."

She ran her fingers over the array of shirts he had hanging in the closet, testing the feel of each between her fingers, before settling on a steel blue, long-sleeved tee of soft cotton and tossing it to the bed. It was one of his favorites as well.

She stripped off her blazer first, holding it over the bed between two fingers before deliberately letting go. It never landed. It faded away to nothing first.

Curiosity piqued, he took a step closer.

She'd dressed for work that morning, Detective Buffy Giles, business casual rather than formal uniform these days, but still a cop. Her gun holster was next. She unclipped it without removing her gun and laid it on the bedspread. The moment her fingers broke contact, it was gone. He knew she didn't care much for her gun, didn't find much need for it, had never used it, but her badge meant more to her. She slipped it off her belt and regretfully laid it in on the bed. She stroked her fingers across the shield one last time before she pulled back and it faded, too.

Her boots, her belt, her shirt, her pants all shared the same fate. Standing in just her underwear, she fingered the lace straps of her bra before thinking better of it and deciding to leave it on. She slipped his shirt on over her head and rolled up the sleeves. It hung to mid-thigh on her, and the steel blue matched her eyes.

He dressed for bed, too, and then he couldn't put the moment off any longer. They slipped beneath the covers, side by side. Out of habit, she started to cuddle up against him, but then retreated to her side of the bed when she caught sight of his panicked expression. She turned off the light, and her presence was easier to bear in the dark.

How many times had he wished he could hold her again? And here they were on opposite sides of the bed as if there were an imaginary line drawn between them. What was wrong with him?

She seemed to be thinking the same thing. "I can only imagine how this is messing with your head."

"It is a bit… bewildering."

"It feels pretty twisted to me, too, you know. I keep thinking this has to be like the most elaborate practical joke ever, and you guys are all gonna crack up laughing, 'we got you good,' and admit that you've been pretending this whole time. I saw you last night, Giles, except without the cane, and we had spaghetti with meatballs for supper, and you were… _Giles_."

She sighed, frustrated, irritated, with _him_ apparently, for not picking up where they left off like she hadn't _died_. "Now you're… all Emotional Marathon Man again, all walled off and British. And I feel like I'm in high school again, and you're gonna lecture me about personal boundaries and getting overly familiar with my Watcher – shake your finger and say it's too unseemly. 'Six-inch rule, young lady, otherwise people might get the wrong idea.'"

"Tell me then, what is the proper response to all of this? It isn't real. It's a paradox."

"Right now it _is_ real." Her hand crossed the imaginary line between them and clasped his. "Just look for the silver lining. You can be with me right now, Giles, for however long it takes us to figure this out. And I can… Look, don't knock second chances. Most people don't get them."

He laced their fingers together and squeezed gently. He could do this. He could hold her hand through the night. He could start there.

* * *

Spike was already waiting by the tree, leaning against its stout base, when the twins dropped to the ground. He pushed off the trunk and strolled out of the shadows.

"Busted," Alex groaned.

Spike planted his hands on his hips. "Apparently, you're both slow learners. Thick skulled. Idiots. Soon to be someone's dinner if left to your own devices."

Alex planted his hands on his hips in a matching pose. "I'm the Slayer, Spike. I'm supposed to patrol. You know I'm right."

"Clued your dad into that fact yet?"

He shifted on his feet, eyes sliding away guiltily. "Things got a little crazy. With Mom and stuff. But I will. You promised you'd let me tell him."

"You asked me to give you a day," Spike corrected. "Been just about exactly that." He turned his attention to the little girl at Alex's side. "How 'bout you, Little Miss Sunshine, you're not the Slayer. Destiny-free, against all the odds. So what makes you think you'd be anything more than a liability, wandering around with your brother on patrol?"

Robin stepped in front of Alex, a bit of backbone in her after all, and Buffy's spitfire in her eyes. "I've been training for it, plus I have… I have magic."

Amused, he cocked one eyebrow, the one with the scar. "You have what now?"

"Magic," she insisted, more forcefully.

He crossed his arms, leaned back, and waited for a demonstration. He nodded at her expectantly.

She traded nervous glances with her brother and then shrugged. Her face screwed up in focused concentration. "Get Back!" she commanded. Nothing happened. "GET BACK!" a little louder, but still nothing. She took a deep breath. "GET BACK!" and this time with accompanying hand gestures as she mimed shoving him backwards. Still nothing.

Spike busted out laughing, and she huffed, stamping her foot.

"It worked before," she complained.

"It did," Alex confirmed. "She sent that purple-eyed demon flying. You shoulda seen it."

His laughter suppressed, more serious now, with a hand pressed to his heart in an unconscious show of sincerity, Spike got back to business. "Look, you two, here's how it's gonna be. I'm of a mind to do a quick patrol myself, see what's changed since I've been gone, and maybe get a tip on this demon everyone's so keen on. If the pair of you are set on tagging along, I ain't gonna stop you. Just stay out of my way, let me do the talking, and if I say run, you sure as hell better run. Got it?"

"You're letting us patrol?" Alex asked in disbelief.

"I'm letting you _tag along_," Spike corrected. "Safer with me where I can keep an eye on you than blundering about on your own. 'Cause if you try and tell me you won't sneak out again the moment my back's turned, I'll _know_ you're lying. Uncle Spike's not as daft as your dad."

"Does Dawn know you're going out patrolling?" Robin asked.

He glared at her, completely affronted. "I'm over a hundred and fifty years old, feared throughout half of Western Europe for over a century, killed two slayers with my bare hands, earned the name Spike by drilling railroad spikes through my victims… You think I need _permission_ to leave the house?"

"Does she know?" Alex parroted.

Spike blew out an impatient breath. "Yes. Now are you coming or not?"

He never intended on exposing them to anything more dangerous than a dive bar full of demons looking to be bribed. Thanks to Giles' Council money, Spike always got the information he needed in a hurry. After that, he hoped a quick run around the cemeteries would satisfy the boy's sense of duty. Maybe if they bumped into a fledgling or two, he'd even let Alex break in his new superpowers.

He certainly never intended on landing smack in front of the demon in question. But that's what happened. Just inside the gates at Heavenly Hills, the purple-eyed demon was apparently also scouting cemeteries for fledgling vamps.

Spike shoved the twins behind him and ordered them to "Run!"

The man-shaped demon stared at Spike, that strange purple glow to his eyes, and his voice echoing inside his mind. "William the Bloody."

Damn kids hadn't budged. "Run or I'll show you why they call me William the _Bloody_!" he growled. Meaning, of course, why they called him that after he'd been turned, not why they called him that before.

"A vampire without a soul seeking redemption." The sneer in the voice sounded as clear as each word, though the demon's lips never moved. Spike could smell a hint of fear from the man, although considering he fed off vampires, that might just be how he lured his prey. "We have watched you. We have wondered whether your good deeds sweetened your blood or spoiled it."

Spike inched backwards, realizing suddenly that he was a vampire facing down a demon that fed off vampires.

Alex stepped forward, attracting the demon's attention. Why was Spike surprised? This was the child who had laughed in merry delight at his uncle's game face before he could even walk. Always far too fearless and now souped up with added slayer power, the boy must feel well nigh invincible.

"You said the world would change." Alex bravely stood his ground and demanded answers. "You said I would die, and the world would change."

The world had changed. Buffy had returned. And her son thought this demon would know why.

But this tall, skinny git who looked like he might snap in two with one well-placed punch only shook his head, clearly baffled. "I said that?"

"Yeah, last night. And now the world _has_ changed, and I wanna know how you did it."

"The Vaurabyll have watched the ages of man rise and fall, the ebb and flow of demonkind carried with it in its wake. But we have watched behind glass. We are powerless to change it. We are slaves to Fate." The echo in their minds became thunderous, and they all flinched. "_Nothing_ can change! The world is _fixed_!"

Undeterred, Alex pressed on. "You said I stole something from you. Is that my prophecy?"

The demon's attention shifted back to Spike. He licked his lips as if considering whether vampire marinated in a decade and a half worth of good deeds would taste sweet or sour.

"You want your fortune, boy? You must render unto me the proper sacrifice."

The demon faded to mist, and when he solidified again, he had Spike restrained in a chokehold. True, as a vampire, he didn't need to breathe, but he couldn't free himself either. And then he felt the needle-like pricks, sharp stings covering his entire body. He writhed in the demon's grip, struggled against a deceptively stronger foe even while he felt himself weakening.

With Drusilla, it had taken her longer to drain him. And even then, she hadn't taken it _all_.

As Spike blacked out, he hoped the twins would finally have the good sense to run. His last thought was for Dawn.

* * *

(Please feedback... It's ever so inspiring! It's fuel on the fire, and I churn out pages much faster with fuel!)

Coming Soon:  
Part 8: Into the Lion's Den


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